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Boris Johnson and Joe Biden will draw comparisons with Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt by signing a new Atlantic charter in an attempt to show UK and US leadership can frame a post-Covid order in the same way the 1941 charter signed by the two leaders prefigured a new world order after the second world war.
The symbolic signing of a new version of the Atlantic charter will take place at the first in-person bilateral meeting between the two leaders since Biden became president, and comes ahead of the critical summit of G7 leaders in Cornwall:
The chief executive of the main supplier of Covid-19 vaccines to Brazil, complained last month to Brazilian diplomats in Beijing that anti-China comments were not helping with delayed shipments, sources told Reuters.
Sinovac CEO Yin Weidong suggested an official retraction would make for a more “fluid” relationship between China and Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, the sources said.
Bolsonaro, who complained during his 2018 campaign about a string of Chinese acquisitions in Brazil, said in a speech on May 5 that the coronavirus pandemic could be “chemical warfare” waged by the fastest-growing nation, without naming China.
Two weeks later, at a meeting at Sinovac headquarters to discuss vaccine supplies, Weidong said a change of attitude in Brasilia would be “convenient” for a more “fluid and positive” relations with the Chinese government, according to a diplomatic cable sent to Brasilia and seen by newspaper O Globo.
The two sources confirmed to Reuters the content of the telegram reported by O Globo on Wednesday.
Updated
The US had administered 304,753,476 doses of Covid-19 vaccines and distributed 372,495,525 doses in the country as of Wednesday morning, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The figures were up from the 303,923,667 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by June 8, out of 372,100,285 doses delivered.
The agency said 172,054,276 people had received at least one dose, while 140,980,110 people were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday.
Updated
Brazil approaches half a million Covid deaths
Brazil has had 85,748 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours and 2,723 deaths, the country’s health ministry said.
The South American country has now registered 17,122,877 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 479,515, Reuters reports.
Updated
Here are the latest Covid developments in Australia:
Updated
Some of the UK’s biggest care home operators have told the Guardian they repeatedly warned Matt Hancock’s department about the risk of not testing people discharged from hospitals into care homes in March 2020.
Their claims are likely to increase pressure on the health secretary when he appears before MPs on Thursday to defend his handling of the Covid pandemic to a parliamentary inquiry.
Care England, which represents the largest private chains where thousands of people died in the first months of the virus, told the Guardian it raised “the lack of testing in hospitals and in the care sector” several times in correspondence with the Department of Health and Social Care as well as NHS England in late March 2020.
The Care Provider Alliance also called on the government to prioritise testing for care residents to stop the spread of the virus, warning on 26 March 2020 that without it “there is no way of knowing whether they are going to infect others”.
The US is in talks with drugmaker Moderna Inc to buy more Covid-19 vaccine doses for global supply, CNBC reported on Wednesday citing a source.
Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown stepped up pressure on the G7 to act on the global supply of vaccines.
Boris Johnson has urged the G7 to vaccinate the world by the end of 2022 and US President Joe Biden appears set to announce the US will buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine to share through the Covax alliance.
Brown said an anticipated donation of a billion extra doses by the G7 would only be a “fraction of what’s needed”.
He told ITV’s Peston programme that Mr Johnson has “got to back up the donation of vaccines and the sharing of doses with a burden-sharing plan”.
Brown added: “He’s got a promise at the moment, but he hasn’t got a plan.”
Updated
A summary of today's developments
- French prime minister Jean Castex is self-isolating for seven days after his wife Sandra tested positive for Covid-19, the prime minister’s office said. The prime minister, who had received his first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 19, tested negative on Wednesday evening. However as a contact of a person who tested positive, he is self-isolating for seven days, his office said.
- Spain’s health ministry has scrapped a nationwide plan to gradually reopen nightlife just a week after introducing it, following widespread complaints from regional authorities who dismissed it as either too strict or too loose.
- The Czech health ministry has recommended only people over 60 should receive Covid-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson due to a potential risk of blood clots, Reuters reports.
- Canada is prepared to relax quarantine protocols for fully vaccinated citizens returning home starting in early July, Reuters reports.
- The US will buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to share through the global COVAX alliance for donation to 92 lower income countries and the African Union over the next year, a source told AP.
- Intensive care beds for Covid patients in Malaysia have reached full capacity, according to the country’s health director general, who said the country’s pandemic remained at a critical level. The country’s king started a series of meetings with leaders of political parties amid public discontent over the government’s handling of the pandemic.
- The World Trade Organization’s members have agreed to talks on boosting global vaccine supplies, though there is still opposition to the idea of waiving patents, in particular from the EU which will propose its own plan.
- There were 1.2 million new cases in the Americas over the past week, according to the Pan American Health Organization. It warned that Covid-19 could remain a problem for the region for years unless the current spread is slowed.
- The UK is facing a “substantial third wave” according to new data presented to the government, Prof Neil Ferguson told reporters. He said that the scale of the problem would depend on how effective vaccines are against the Delta variant, originally found in India. Meanwhile according to new data, 8 in 10 adults in the UK are likely to have Covid-19 antibodies through either vaccination or previous infection.
- NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson has told Times Radio this morning that vaccines appear to have “broken” the link between infections, hospital admission and deaths in the UK.
- A judge has ruled that the UK government acted unlawfully when it awarded a contract for polling the public about Covid messaging without a tender last March. The company was owned by friends of Dominic Cummings, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser.
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Confidence in the EU’s ability to handle crises has taken a hit from Covid-19, a major survey shows, but dissatisfaction with national political systems is even higher and most people still support EU membership and want a stronger, more cooperative bloc.
- In the US, a pharmacist has been jailed for three years after pleading guilty to trying to spoil hundreds of doses of the Moderna vaccine because he was skeptical about them.
Spain’s health ministry has scrapped a nationwide plan to gradually reopen nightlife just a week after introducing it, following widespread complaints from regional authorities who dismissed it as either too strict or too loose.
Reuters reports:
The plan, which would have allowed areas with low infection rates to open nightclubs until 3 a.m., drew the ire of several regions and a legal challenge from Madrid’s conservative leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso.
After a week of tension, health chiefs from Spain’s 17 regions unanimously approved a revised version of the document on Wednesday in which the rules are reduced to non-binding guidelines, Health Minister Carolina Darias told reporters. “The measures for the hospitality sector are no longer included in the document, and those for nightlife...are now recommendations,” she said at a news conference. “It doesn’t mean that (clubs) will open everywhere, but rather that each region, depending on its epidemiological situation, will decide how to open,” she added.
French prime minister's wife tests positive for coronavirus
French prime minister Jean Castex is self-isolating for seven days after his wife Sandra tested positive for Covid-19, the prime minister’s office said.
The prime minister, who had received his first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 19, tested negative on Wednesday evening. However as a contact of a person who tested positive, he is self-isolating for seven days, his office said.
The Czech health ministry has recommended only people over 60 should receive Covid-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson due to a potential risk of blood clots, Reuters reports.
Scientists and U.S. and European drug regulators have been searching for an explanation for what is causing rare but potentially deadly clots accompanied by low blood platelet counts, which have led some countries to halt or limit use of the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
The Czech health ministry said it made the decision after responding to recommendations from the country’s drug regulator SUKL and the Czech Vaccination Society.
US, EU and other regulators have said the benefits of receiving the AstraZeneca or J&J shots outweigh any risks.
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The International Olympic Committee has pledged to source as many doctors and nurses as needed from around the globe to ensure the Tokyo Olympics is safe – and to help Japan fight a fourth wave of Covid infections.
The IOC’s offer comes amid mounting concern in Japan that having 70,000 athletes, officials, journalists and support staff arriving into the country could act as super-spreaders for new variants and put huge pressure on medical services.
Mastercard Inc and drinks company Ambev, major sponsors of South American football, have backed away from the Copa America as players criticised organisers for moving the tournament to Brazil despite one of the world’s worst Covid-19 outbreaks.
Last week, the South American Football Confederation unexpectedly relocated the tournament, which kicks off on Sunday, after co-hosts Colombia were dropped because of civil unrest and Argentina withdrew after a surge in coronavirus infections. More than 475,000 Brazilians have died from coronavirus, Reuters reports. The Brazil football team cited “humanitarian” concerns in a statement criticising the organization of the Copa America on Wednesday, but they committed to participating in the tournament after rumors of a potential boycott. Mastercard Inc said it decided not to “activate” its sponsorship of Copa America in Brazil after a thorough analysis, meaning it will temporarily remove its branding from the event it has sponsored since 1992. Ambev SA, a unit of brewer AB InBev sponsoring both the tournament and the Brazilian national team, said “its brands will not be present at the Copa America.”
In South Africa just 0.8% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to a worldwide tracker kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Associated Press reports:
And hundreds of thousands of the country’s health workers, many of whom come face-to-face with the virus every day, are still waiting for their shots.
In Nigeria only 0.1% are fully protected. Kenya is even lower. Uganda has recalled doses from rural areas because it does not have nearly enough to fight outbreaks in big cities. Chad did not administer its first vaccine shots until this past weekend. And there are at least five other countries in Africa where not one dose has been put into an arm, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It is extremely concerning and at times frustrating,” said Africa CDC director Dr. John Nkengasong, a Cameroonian virologist said. “I’d like to believe that the G-7 countries, most of them having kept excess doses of vaccines, want to be on the right side of history,” he added. “Distribute those vaccines. We need to actually see these vaccines, not just ... promises and goodwill.”
The latest from the governor of New York on the Covid situation in the state:
Today's update on the numbers:
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) June 9, 2021
Total COVID hospitalizations are at 777.
Of the 113,709 tests reported yesterday, 426 were positive (0.37% of total).
Sadly, there were 11 fatalities. pic.twitter.com/jbeNV8mtIB
Canada is prepared to relax quarantine protocols for fully vaccinated citizens returning home starting in early July, Reuters reports.
Canada’s air and land borders have allowed for only essential travel since March of last year, and Canadians coming home are currently required to quarantine for 14 days. If they arrive by air, they also must stay in a designated hotel until they receive a negative Covid-19 test. “The first step ... is to allow fully vaccinated individuals currently permitted to enter Canada to do so without the requirement to stay in government-authorized accommodation,” health minister Patty Hajdu told reporters. Asked about calls from businesses to lift restrictions starting on June 22, Hajdu said: “We do want to be cautious and careful on these next steps to be sure that we are not putting that recovery in jeopardy.”
The US will buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to share through the global COVAX alliance for donation to 92 lower income countries and the African Union over the next year, a source told AP.
President Joe Biden was set to make the announcement Thursday in a speech before the start of Group of Seven summit.
According to the source, 200 million doses — enough to fully protect 100 million people — would be shared this year, with the balance to be donated in the first half of 2022.
The announcement comes days after the White House unveiled its plans to begin sharing the existing U.S. vaccine surplus with the world.
Updated
A summary of the day so far
- Intensive care beds for Covid patients in Malaysia have reached full capacity, according to the country’s health director general, who said the country’s pandemic remained at a critical level. The country’s king started a series of meetings with leaders of political parties amid public discontent over the government’s handling of the pandemic.
- The World Trade Organization’s members have agreed to talks on boosting global vaccine supplies, though there is still opposition to the idea of waiving patents, in particular from the EU which will propose its own plan.
- US President Joe Biden teased the announcement of a new global vaccine plan before boarding Air Force One for his first foreign trip.
- There were 1.2 million new cases in the Americas over the past week, according to the Pan American Health Organization. It warned that Covid-19 could remain a problem for the region for years unless the current spread is slowed.
- The UK is facing a “substantial third wave” according to new data presented to the government, Prof Neil Ferguson told reporters. He said that the scale of the problem would depend on how effective vaccines are against the Delta variant, originally found in India. Meanwhile according to new data, 8 in 10 adults in the UK are likely to have Covid-19 antibodies through either vaccination or previous infection.
- NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson has told Times Radio this morning that vaccines appear to have “broken” the link between infections, hospital admission and deaths in the UK.
- A judge has ruled that the UK government acted unlawfully when it awarded a contract for polling the public about Covid messaging without a tender last March. The company was owned by friends of Dominic Cummings, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser.
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Confidence in the EU’s ability to handle crises has taken a hit from Covid-19, a major survey shows, but dissatisfaction with national political systems is even higher and most people still support EU membership and want a stronger, more cooperative bloc.
- In the US, a pharmacist has been jailed for three years after pleading guilty to trying to spoil hundreds of doses of the Moderna vaccine because he was skeptical about them.
Covid-19 could remain a problem in the Americas for years to come unless the rate of spread is slowed, the regional wing of the World Health Organization said.
There were 1.2 million new cases and 34,000 deaths in the region over the past week said Carissa Etienne, head of the Pan American Health Organization, during their weekly briefing.
🌎 Last week there were almost 1.2 million new COVID-19 cases and over 34,000 new deaths reported in the Americas, and four of the five countries with the highest death counts in the world were right here in our region. @DirOPSPAHO https://t.co/kCdzAPaiPM
— PAHO/WHO (@pahowho) June 9, 2021
She said infections are at the highest point since the pandemic began and more needed to be done to deliver vaccines, praising donations from the US, Spain and Canada.
“We hope other countries, particularly those with excess doses, and global financial institutions will follow in their footsteps to provide the support we need,” Etienne said. “Vaccine donations are essential in the short-term.”
PAHO’s Director of Health Emergencies, Ciro Ugarte, also said countries suffering from uncontrolled outbreaks should consider postponing mass events.
The Copa America football tournament starts in Brazil on Sunday, despite being an epicentre for coronavirus cases with around 17 million cases and 474,000 deaths, according to the WHO.
The tournament was originally planned for Colombia and Argentina but was relocated because of political unrest and Argentina’s own coronavirus outbreak.
World Trade Organization members have agreed to negotiate ways to boost global supplies of Covid-19 vaccines but are still at odds of waiving patents to speed production, Reuters reports.
South Africa and India have been arguing since last year that a temporary waiver would enable much faster production by tapping into unused manufacturing capacity around the world but the EU have argued against their proposal.
Backed by the UK, Switzerland and South Korea, the EU are instead producing their own plan and negotiations will begin on June 17, a Geneva trade official said.
Opponents, many of them home to major pharmaceutical companies, have argued that WTO rules already allow countries to give manufacturers licensing outside of patents but the South Africa and India have argued the nature of the pandemic requires a comprehensive strategy.
Campaign group Global Justice Now said governments must now reach clear the “artificial barriers” to vaccine access.
“After eight months of stalling and delaying by a handful of rich countries, world leaders have finally given the green light for negotiations to start. But the UK and EU are still opposing the proposal and pushing for business-as-usual,” said Heidi Chow, Global Justice Now’s Senior Policy and Campaigns Manager.
“The global intellectual property system is not fit for purpose. Countless numbers of people have needlessly died while waiting for a breakthrough in these discussions.”
Health experts in Haiti have said that low official pandemic figures are hiding a large increase in cases on the impoverished Caribbean island in recent weeks.
Just 2,271 cases and 62 deaths have been recorded over the past month, according to government data collected by Johns Hopkins University. A total of 15,700 cases and more than 330 deaths have been reported since early last year.
The lack of cases early this year had led authorities to reduce the number of beds available for Covid patients to about 200 — more than half of those at the nonprofit St. Luke Foundation for Haiti in the capital of Port-au-Prince, according to the Associated Press. But by early this month, that clinic was at capacity and announced it was turning away patients.
Haiti’s Health Ministry had planned to have another 150 beds elsewhere for COVID-19 patients, but that effort was delayed.
“Many people are dying on arrival in ambulances,” the foundation said. “We have received many nuns as patients, a sure sign (COVID-19) is in the poorest areas.”
Marc Edson Augustin, medical director of the St. Luke hospital, told AP that he was especially worried about deaths he has seen among those aged 17 to 22. Groups of up to seven people are showing up at the same time seeking treatment for Covid, he said.
“The situation is real, and we want to tell people that the situation is getting worse,” he said. “We’re working to keep people alive as much as possible.”
Lisbon lockdown easing delayed
In Portugal, the post-lockdown reopening of Lisbon and three other municipalities is being slowed after an increase in coronavirus infections, according to the French news agency AFP.
Along with the capital, Braga and Vale de Cambra in the north and Odemira in the south will remain under current lockdown measures in place until at least 27 June.
“The situation of these municipalities does not allow us to continue deconfinement,” said government spokeswoman Mariana Vieira da Silva after ministers met and made the decisions, stressing that the number of Covid-19 cases had increased in Lisbon, especially among younger people.
In the affected areas working from home will remain obligatory where possible whereas in the rest of the country it will only be recommended after 14 June, the date of the next phase of lockdown.
Also in Lisbon and the other higher infection areas, restaurants will have to close at 10:30 pm, while in the rest of the country they will be able to stay open until 1 am.
Portugal introduced strict lockdown measures from mid-January to mid-March after a new wave of coronavirus infections. Measures have been gradually eased since then, however bars and nightclubs will remain closed until late August.
On Wednesday, a total of 890 new coronavirus infections were registered - the biggest daily figure since 15 March. No new Covid-linked deaths were reported.
Scientists are concerned that measures to combat Covid-19 have weakened the immune systems of young children who have not been able to build up resistance to common bugs, leaving them vulnerable when mask-wearing and social distancing eventually end, writes Guardian science reporter Natalie Grover.
Contact with viral pathogens happens on a fairly regular basis and although it does not always lead to sickness, the exposure helps shore the immune system against the threat should the bugs be encountered again.
Over the past 14 months or so, protracted restrictions on mixing and travel, alongside mask-wearing and social distancing, have not only reduced the risk of Covid but other respiratory bugs such as the flu – cases of which were basically nonexistent last winter, according to surveillance data largely encompassing England compiled by the Royal College of GPs (RCGP).
However, virologists are concerned about RSV, a virus that can cause serious lung infections requiring hospital admission, and sometimes even death, in children under the age of one – and for which there are no approved vaccines.
Drug dealers in Europe have responded to the Covid pandemic by moving from the streets and on to social media, taking orders through encrypted messaging apps and delivering drugs directly to customers’ doors, Europe’s drugs agency said in its latest report.
“The pandemic is pushing drug criminals online, reinforcing a trend,” said Ylva Johansson, the European Commissioner for home affairs, at the online launch of the 2021 report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
In a news release accompanying the report, Johansson added:
I am particularly concerned by the highly pure and potent substances available on our streets and online and by the 46 new drugs detected in the EU in 2020 alone.
The pandemic has forced changes to every level of the drugs trade, from wholesale traffickers and smugglers to neighbourhood dealers, according to Reuters. With international travel disrupted and borders shut, smugglers have been relying more on shipping containers and less on human couriers, the report said. But the trade proved resilient, with data showing no decline in the amount of cocaine available, while more people were growing cannabis at home.
The report said:
Although street-based retail drug markets were disrupted during the early lockdowns, and some localised shortages reported, drug sellers and buyers adapted by increasing their use of encrypted messaging services, social media apps, online sources and mail and home delivery services.
Alexis Goosdeel, EMCDDA’s director, said there would be new risks from what the report called “the further digitalisation of drug markets”. The shift to online transactions made it easier for drug dealers to recruit young people, and to make the push out of big cities into rural areas.
In a statement, Goodeel said:
We are witnessing a dynamic and adaptive drug market, resilient to Covid-19 restrictions. We are also seeing patterns of drug use that are increasingly complex, as consumers are exposed to a wider range of highly potent natural and synthetic substances. We need urgently to recognise that, not only is a wider variety of people now personally experiencing drug problems, but these problems are impacting on our communities in a wider variety of ways. This is why I believe it is crucial, across the areas of social, health and security policy, to develop the evidence-based and integrated responses envisioned by the new EU drugs strategy’.
Updated
The Hoff is back, and he’s calling on Germans to roll up their sleeves and get their coronavirus vaccinations.
In a video released by Germany’s health ministry on Monday, David Hasselhoff, who is best known in the Anglophone world for his star turn in Baywatch but is a musical star in Germany, tells his German fans “Aermel hoch!” - or, in English, “sleeves up!”
The video makes a play on Hasselhoff’s 1989 “Looking for Freedom” album, which was popular in Germany after its title song become a soundtrack for the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Reuters news agency reports.
"#ÄrmelHoch!", sagt @davidhasselhoff . Er ist von der #CoronaSchutzimpfung überzeugt. Informationen unter: https://t.co/42TwbObw6B pic.twitter.com/1WrWiRcIkY
— BMG (@BMG_Bund) June 7, 2021
Pulling up his sleeve to show a plaster on the spot on his arm where coronavirus vaccines are injected, he says in the video:
I, David Hasselhoff, am supposedly a hero because of Baywatch and Knight Rider, and the Berlin Wall. But I found freedom with vaccination. You can too!
The video has been mocked by some Germans as many people are still waiting to get an appointment for a vaccine.
This is Damien Gayle covering the live blog for a bit while Kaamil takes a break.
Updated
Data from Scotland’s Covid vaccination programme has revealed a possible small increase in the risk of a treatable and often mild bleeding disorder after the first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, writes Ian Sample, the Guardian’s science editor.
Doctors examined the medical records of 5.4 million people in Scotland for instances of blood clots, unusual bleeding, and a condition called idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), where a reduction in blood platelets can lead to easy bruising, bleeding gums and internal bleeding.
The analysis conducted with Public Health Scotland found the risk of ITP was marginally higher in the 1.7 million people who had a first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine than a comparison group that did not receive the shot up to 14 April 2021.
Writing in Nature Medicine the researchers estimate there are an additional 11 cases of ITP for every million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine administered. The side-effect is mostly seen in older people with chronic health problems such as coronary heart disease, diabetes or chronic kidney disease and typically appears from the second to fourth week.
UK facing "substantial third wave"
The UK is facing a “substantial third wave” of infection according to new modelling but its scale will depend on how effective vaccines are against new strains, Prof Neil Ferguson warned.
PA Media reports that Prof Ferguson told a media briefing the new data, compiled by SPI-M – a subgroup of Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) – had been submitted to the government.
He said: “Basically it (the modelling) is saying there is a risk of a substantial third wave, (but) we cannot be definitive about the scale of that – it could be substantially lower than the second wave or it could be of the same order of magnitude.
“That, critically, depends on how effective the vaccines still are protecting people against hospitalisation and death against the Delta (Indian) variant, as well as a few other unknowns.”
Updated
Tens of thousands of deaths were caused by “inadequate delays” in the British government’s responses to the pandemic, an expert has said.
PA Media reported the comments by Alison Rodger, professor of infectious diseases at the UCL Institute for Global Health, at the UCL-Lancet lecture on lessons from the pandemic on Wednesday.
Prof Rodger said: “The Covid-19 pandemic, I think, laid bare clear differences in the effectiveness of different government responses, even in the face of mounting scientific evidence and advice around effective strategies to control the virus.
“I think the UK suffered from inadequate delay in government responses and policies, which caused tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, particularly in older people in social care settings, and directly put at risk the lives of frontline health and social care staff – the staff from ethnic minority groups bearing a disproportionate burden.
“I do think though (the fact) that the UK has a much higher death rate not only than other high-resource countries in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, also some lower middle income countries, is actually a cause for national shame.”
Updated
US president Joe Biden teased a global vaccine plan as headed off on his first foreign trip as president.
He told reporters before he boarded Air Force One: “I have one, and I’ll be announcing it.”
Updated
A Nobel-winning US biologist has walked back his comments that helped fuel theories about Covid-19 being developed in a Wuhan lab, my colleague Peter Beaumont reports.
With debate about the origins of the virus reignited, biology professor David Baltimore recently admitted his phrasing may have been too dramatic.
Originally quoted in an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in May, and widely requoted since, Baltimore had appeared to suggest that a specific feature in Covid-19’s genome, known as the furin cleavage site, was the “smoking gun” to the theory the virus had been contained inside a laboratory and then escaped via a leak.
“These features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for Sars2,” he said at the time.
In recent days, however, Baltimore has told a fellow researcher, the scientific journal Nature and the LA Times that – while he had been quoted accurately in the bulletin – he should not have used the phrase “smoking gun” and was uncertain what the feature proved regarding the origins of the virus – natural or otherwise.
Updated
The US has agreed to buy 1.7m doses of an experimental drug for treating Covid-19 if it gets approval for emergency use.
Pharmaceutical company Merck & Co said it had agreed a $1.2bn (£840m) deal for Molnupiravir, which is in phase 3 trials.
Merck & Co said phase 2 trials showed taking the anti-viral shortened the time until non-hospitalised patients returned a negative test.
The company said in a statement that it has also begun negotiations with other countries for advance purchases as well as licensing agreements with generic drug manufacturers to ensure access to low and middle-income countries.
Updated
About 80% of adults in UK likely to have Covid antibodies, ONS estimates
About 80% of adults in the UK are likely to have Covid-19 antibodies, either through infection or vaccination, according to data reported by PA Media.
The latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics represent approximately a 10% increase in each part of the UK, including Scotland where they were the lowest at 73%.
The estimates were based on blood test samples from private households from the week of 17 May.
Updated
The EU’s approval for Germany to give £470m in state aid to support charter airline Condor through the pandemic has been annulled by an EU court, AFP reports.
The court said it could not establish that coronavirus-related travel restrictions caused the collapse of a takeover of the airline, which was already in insolvency proceedings when the pandemic broke out.
The court suspended its ruling, however, to give time to the EU to consider a new decision on the case because of “harmful consequences for the German economy” if the aid was immediately halted.
Hi, this is Kaamil Ahmed taking over the live blog until the evening. My colleague Libby Brooks has covered concerns in Scotland over the opening of a mixed fan zone for the Euro 2020 tournament starting this week.
The space in Glasgow will allow 6,000 football fans to gather daily without mandatory testing. Some of the public and health experts have questioned the step considering many restrictions are still in place and cases across Scotland are still rising.
Parents in particular have been voicing anger and frustration that the fan zone has been allowed to go ahead while continuing restrictions prevent them attending nursery, primary and high school leaving events as well as end of term sports days.
Martin Canavan, whose daughter attends a nursery on the Southside of Glasgow, told the Guardian: “Our wee girl was in tears when we told her we couldn’t come to her nursery graduation any more. They’ve been rehearsing their song for weeks. It feels like a pretty arbitrary decision to cancel these events when thousands can watch football, and people can drink in pubs.”
Pakistan achieves 10 millionth vaccination dose administered
Pakistan has hailed the administering of 10m doses of coronavirus vaccines as an important step towards its goal of vaccinating 70 million people by the end of the year.
“Thank God, we have succeeded in administering 10m vaccine doses,” the minister in-charge for Covid-19 operations, Asad Umar, told a ceremony to mark the milestone in Islamabad.
“Our target is to vaccinate up to 70 million people by the end of this year,” he said of the total adult population eligible for the vaccination out of a 220-million nation.
Updated
A PA Media news agency analysis is showing that the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 in England is now a fifth higher than it was at the end of the second wave of the virus, with more regions reporting a rise in patients.
A total of 879 patients with Covid-19 were in hospital in England as of 8am on 8 June, according to NHS England. This is up from 776 one week earlier – a rise of 13%. It is also up 20% from a low of 730 patients on 22 May.
This comes as government ministers are reviewing the latest data on Covid-19 cases and the amount of people being taken to hospital to decide whether the planned easing of social restrictions in England on 21 June will go ahead.
Patient numbers are not increasing steadily, with the total sometimes falling slightly one day before jumping again the next. But even when using a seven-day average to smooth out these kinds of fluctuations, the trend is now upwards.
These figures are still well below the second-wave peak, when the number of patients reached a record high average of 33,594 on 22 January. The upwards trend is also not being reflected in every region of England.
Covid-19 case rates are currently rising in four out of five local areas of England – the highest proportion since early January.
Public health experts have said that the country could expect to see rising case numbers as restrictions were eased – but the key metric is whether this would lead to increased hospitalisations and a repeat risk of overwhelming the NHS.
Earlier today, NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson seemed very clear that vaccines appear to have “broken” the link between infections, hospital admission and deaths in the UK.
Updated
Today so far …
- Intensive care beds for Covid patients in Malaysia have reached full capacity, according to the country’s health director general, who said the country’s pandemic remained at a critical level.
- Malaysia’s king has started a series of meetings with leaders of political parties, amid public discontent over the government’s handling of a coronavirus crisis that has forced the nation into a third lockdown.
- UK housing minister Robert Jenrick has told people hoping to get married after 21 June that “I wouldn’t make plans until you’ve heard from the prime minister” over attendance numbers. The government’s roadmap had suggested the cap of 30 attendees would be lifted “no earlier” than 21 June, and many couple will have planned on that basis.
- NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson has told Times Radio this morning that vaccines appear to have “broken” the link between infections, hospital admission and deaths in the UK.
- A judge has ruled that the UK government acted unlawfully when it awarded a contract for polling the public about Covid messaging without a tender last March. The company was owned by friends of Dominic Cummings, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser.
- The mayor of Greater Manchester in England, Andy Burnham, has offered a rare bit of praise to the government for “surging support” into areas where there are high case numbers after health secretary Matt Hancock announced that a “strengthened package of support” will be provided for Greater Manchester and Lancashire. But he urged people to “minimise” the number of people they watch England’s Euro 2020 match against Croatia with this weekend.
- The UK’s competition watchdog has launched action against British Airways and Ryanair over their refusal to give refunds to people during UK lockdowns, when they were “lawfully unable to fly” due to travel bans and restrictions imposed by the government.
- Andrew Lloyd-Webber has said he will reopen his London theatres at the end of June regardless of restrictions, inviting the government to have him arrested.
- Confidence in the EU’s ability to handle crises has taken a hit from Covid-19, a major survey shows, but dissatisfaction with national political systems is even higher and most people still support EU membership and want a stronger, more cooperative bloc.
- Three people were killed in a blaze that broke out at a Russian hospital treating patients with Covid-19, authorities said, with one official suggesting a faulty ventilator was to blame.
- Additionally, Russia has reported 10,407 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, its highest number of daily infections since early March.
- Indonesia has reported 7,725 new coronavirus infections, the highest daily number since 26 February.
- Taiwan has reported 274 new local cases of Covid-19 today, mostly in New Taipei city. Another 25 people have died, bringing Taiwan’s total death toll to 296.
- Dr David Nabarro, special envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organization, has said British prime minister Boris Johnson’s commitment to vaccinating the entire world by the end of next year could be a “gift for generations to come”.
- Doctors, pharmacists and workplaces in Australia can now incentivise people to receive the Covid-19 vaccine by offering rewards including cash, prizes and complementary and alternative medicines, in a move a professor of public health and expert on drugs regulation, Prof Ken Harvey, has described as “utter craziness”.
- The US state department has eased travel recommendations for more than 110 countries and territories, including Japan just ahead of the Olympics.
- Also in the US, a pharmacist has been jailed for three years after pleading guilty to trying to spoil hundreds of doses of the Moderna vaccine because he was skeptical about them.
Andrew Sparrow has our UK live blog, which will have its main focus on Brexit, PMQs and the G7 meeting today. I’ll continue to bring you the top lines from the UK on Covid as well as the rest of the coronavirus news from around the world.
Updated
One of those stories today that is likely to feature in both Andrew Sparrow’s UK politics live blog, and here on our Covid blog, but a judge has just ruled that the government acted unlawfully when it awarded a contract without a tender last March to a polling company owned by friends of Dominic Cummings, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser.
When the pandemic then hit, Cummings urged civil servants to hire the company Public First to hold focus groups on the government’s Covid-19 health messaging.
Mrs Justice O’Farrell, who gave the ruling on the Cabinet Office contract with the company Public First, said: “The decision of 5 June 2020 to award the contract to Public First gave rise to apparent bias and was unlawful.”
Read more of David Conn’s report for us here: Covid contract for firm run by Cummings friends was unlawful, judge rules
Indonesia reports highest level of new daily infections since late February
Indonesia has reported 7,725 new coronavirus infections, the highest daily number since 26 February, data from the country’s Covid-19 taskforce showed.
Reuters note that the task force also reported 170 people died from Covid on Wednesday, taking the total to 52,162.
Joseph Sipalan has this despatch for Reuters from Kuala Lumpur, where he reports Malaysia’s king has started a series of meetings with leaders of political parties, amid public discontent over the government’s handling of a coronavirus crisis that has forced the nation into a third lockdown.
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s administration imposed strict Covid-19 measures from June 1-14 to address a surge in infections and deaths, on top of an ongoing national emergency to curb the spread of the disease.
But those have led to public frustration over a perceived slow rollout of vaccinations, haphazard policymaking and uneven enforcement of coronavirus curbs that critics say royalty and elites have been allowed to skirt.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who spent an hour with King Al-Sultan Abdullah, said the national emergency has done more harm than good.
“We presented our view that allowing this emergency to continue will lead to losses to the country,” Anwar told reporters. “It does not help with the handling of Covid and it effects the economy, especially those in the lower rungs of society.”
Muhyiddin was the first to meet with the king, ahead of his weekly cabinet meeting. Other political leaders are expected at the palace over the next few days, including ex-premier Mahathir Mohamad.
In a statement, the national palace said the king has convened a special meeting of the council of rulers on Wednesday to discuss efforts to battle the epidemic during the emergency.
Intensive care beds for Covid patients in Malaysia have reached full capacity [see 6.11], according to the country’s health director general, who said the country’s pandemic remained at a critical level.
My colleague Sarah Marsh has a recap here of those important words from NHS Providers chief executive, Chris Hopson, that the link between Covid cases and deaths has been broken.
Three killed in Russian hospital blaze thought to have been started by 'faulty ventilator'
Three people were killed in a fire that broke out at a Russian hospital treating patients with Covid-19, authorities said, with one official suggesting a faulty ventilator was to blame.
The fire broke out in the early hours of Wednesday at a hospital in the city of Ryazan, 180 kilometres (112 miles) from Moscow, in a ward treating Covid-19 patients.
The region’s governor, Nikolai Lyubimov, told state television that a ventilator in the ward had overheated and caught fire, the Interfax news agency reported.
Nurses attempted to extinguish the blaze, but were unsuccessful in doing so, with some of them sustaining severe burns, the governor said.
Reuters note that since the start of the pandemic, Russia has reported several fires at intensive care units that doctors said were caused by malfunctioning ventilators used to treat patients severely ill with the virus.
Updated
Andrew Sparrow has begun publishing our UK live blog for the day. I suspect there will be a lot of politics in it today. I’ll continue to have top UK lines as well as the global Covid news.
Updated
Russia reports highest daily new case figures since early March
Russia has reported 10,407 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, its highest number of daily infections since early March, taking the national tally to 5,156,250 since the pandemic began.
Regular readers will note that I’ve expressed some scepticism about how Russia’s official figures basically haven’t moved for months, which doesn’t feel like how the pandemic has behaved elsewhere.
Reuters said the government coronavirus task force reported 399 people had died, pushing the national death toll to 124,895. The federal statistics agency has kept a separate toll and has said that Russia recorded around 270,000 deaths related to Covid-19 between April 2020 and April 2021.
Gerald Imray reports for Associated Press from Cape Town that in South Africa, which has Africa’s most robust economy and its biggest coronavirus caseload, just 0.8% of the population is fully vaccinated. Hundreds of thousands of the country’s health workers, many of whom come face-to-face with the virus every day, are still waiting for their shots.
The picture is similar with other African nations. In Nigeria, Africa’s biggest country with more than 200 million people, only 0.1% are fully protected. Kenya, with 50 million people, is even lower. Uganda has recalled doses from rural areas because it doesn’t have nearly enough to fight outbreaks in big cities.
Chad didn’t administer its first vaccine shots until this past weekend. And there are at least five other countries in Africa where not one dose has been put into an arm, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The World Health Organization says the continent of 1.3 billion people is facing a severe shortage of vaccine at the same time a new wave of infections is rising across Africa. Vaccine shipments into Africa have ground to a “near halt”, WHO said last week.
In an interview, Nkengasong called on the leaders of wealthy nations meeting this week at the G7 summit to share spare vaccines – something the US has already agreed to do – and avert a “moral catastrophe”.
“I’d like to believe that the G7 countries, most of them having kept excess doses of vaccines, want to be on the right side of history,” Nkengasong said. “Distribute those vaccines. We need to actually see these vaccines, not just … promises and goodwill.”
Others are not so patient, nor so diplomatic.
“People are dying. Time is against us. This IS INSANE,” South African human rights lawyer Fatima Hasan, an activist for equal access to health care, wrote in a series of text messages.
Updated
NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson has told Times Radio this morning that vaccines appear to have “broken” the link between infections, hospital admission and deaths in the UK, and hospitals were reporting less sick, younger patients than before.
He added: “And if, and it is a big if, if Bolton has gone through its complete cycle and if others areas follow Bolton, the view from the hospital there was that they were able to cope with the level of infections.
“It’s important not to just focus on the raw numbers here … you also do need to look at who’s being admitted into hospital and how clinically vulnerable and what level of acuity they’ve got.
“What chief executives are consistently telling us is that it is a much younger population that is coming in, they are less clinically vulnerable, they are less in need of critical care and therefore they’re seeing what they believe is significantly lower mortality rate which is, you know, borne out by the figures. So it’s not just the numbers of people who are coming in, it’s actually the level of harm and clinical risk.”
However, PA Media reports he said those people who are admitted but survive may still end up with long Covid.
Updated
Taiwan has reported 274 new local cases of Covid-19 today, mostly in New Taipei city. Another 25 people have died, bringing Taiwan’s total death toll to 296. Health authorities have just given their daily update, and the numbers are higher than the previous two days but lower than last week.
There are currently 2,542 people in hospital and 1,486 with milder cases in centralised quarantine facilities. More than 10% of deaths – which have skewed older in this outbreak – occurred before the patient got to hospital,
Testing capacity has also increased, with the ability for 48,000 PCR tests a day, up from 27,600.
Health and welfare minister Chen Shih-chung has also reminded local governments that they should be following the protocols established under alert level 3, which limits gatherings and closes some shops, but doesn’t lock people inside.
He made the comments in response to reports of the Miaoli county government ordering migrant workers be kept to their dorms and not allowed out except to go to work.
A growing cluster of hundreds of cases across four factories is quickly becoming the new focus of this outbreak, and there are a lot of allegations around that migrant workers – of whom there are around 430,000 in the manufacturing industry primarily living in dormitories – are being treated at a different standard to Taiwanese employees.
There is some pushback on the government’s handling of this outbreak, including its preparations for the known risk of outbreaks in migrant worker dorms, and over the level 3 rules for the general public.
Employers are still only encouraged to facilitate working from home, and there are wide reports that many are still making workers go in - even if not strictly necessary. Meanwhile outdoor areas are closed.
Level 3 in Taiwan means you go into the office for work. But the beach is closed. pic.twitter.com/SZboJrn1Ec
— Tricky Taipei (@trickytaipei) June 9, 2021
Updated
Dr David Nabarro, special envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organization, has said British prime minister Boris Johnson’s commitment to vaccinating the entire world by the end of next year could be a “gift for generations to come”.
“I am absolutely delighted that the British prime minister has made this call to action for the world to get vaccinated by the end of next year,” he told Sky News.“And he’s going to use his leadership of the G7 group of nations to make this point.
“So I think like many, I am hoping that world leaders in the G7 will just say very clearly: ‘We are going to work together to make sure that the world is vaccinated adequately by the end of 2022’. That would be a gift for generations to come. And it’s the kind of leadership that really we’re expecting and hoping to see in the coming weeks.”
He added: “The reality is that it will be a massive undertaking to ensure that everybody has access to a vaccine, it will be a massive undertaking to make sure that enough vaccine is available and the vaccines are constantly modified in the light of new variants emerging. But this is doable.
“It’s not in the big scheme of things a massive expenditure, it just requires everybody saying we’re going to work together on this job.”
Nabarro may have over-estimated not only the extent to which Boris Johnson habitually sees his grand projects through to the end – garden bridge anyone? – but also under-estimated practicalities of it. Yesterday my colleague Sarah Boseley assessed how feasible it might be…
Updated
Andy Burnham appeals for people to 'minimise' the number of people they watch Euro 2020 with
The mayor of Greater Manchester in England, Andy Burnham, has offered a rare bit of praise to the government for “surging support” into areas where there are high case numbers after health secretary Matt Hancock announced that a “strengthened package of support” will be provided for Greater Manchester and Lancashire.
“We very much appreciate the help of the government. It’s a reversal of where we were last year,” he said on BBC Breakfast. “Then we were getting restrictions put on us without support. This is an approach where the restrictions are being managed nationally through the road map. We’ve been working closely with the government on this. It’s a sensible approach and we support it.”
Burnham has encouraged residents in parts of Lancashire and Greater Manchester to “minimise” the number of people they watch England’s Euro 2020 match against Croatia with this weekend after a rise in coronavirus cases in the areas.
PA report he said: “If you look to this weekend with the weather looking good in Greater Manchester, which is great for everybody with the football coming, we would say minimise the number of people you watch the match with. Watch it outside if you can.”
Burnham has also been on the Radio 4 Today programme, where he is been making the point that surge vaccinations could provide a key route out of the local restrictions that areas of the north-west of England are being asked to follow.
Andy Burnham says England will be more likely to lift lockdown on time if vaccines go to Covid hotspots first to stop the Delta variant “it’s not just in our interest - its in everyone’s interest that we stop the Delta variant” #today
— Kate Ferguson (@kateferguson4) June 9, 2021
Andy Burnham calls for vaccines to be surged to Covid hotspots like Manchester and Lancashire - says these areas should get their jabs allocation earlier “of course it would slow vaccination in other parts of the country where infections are lower” #today
— Kate Ferguson (@kateferguson4) June 9, 2021
Updated
There’s already been some pushback on that investigation by the CMA into the refund policies of British Airways and Ryanair, as you might imagine. PA Media is reporting that a spokeswoman for British Airways said the company has issued more than 3m refunds.
They added: “We continue to offer highly flexible booking policies at the same time as operating a vastly reduced schedule due to government-imposed travel restrictions, and we have acted lawfully at all times.
“It is incredible that the government is seeking to punish further an industry that is on its knees, after prohibiting airlines from meaningful flying for well over a year now.
“Any action taken against our industry will only serve to destabilise it, with potential consequences for jobs, business, connectivity and the UK economy.”
Updated
British Airways and Ryanair investigated over Covid refunds
The UK’s competition watchdog has launched action against British Airways and Ryanair over their refusal to give refunds to people during UK lockdowns, when they were “lawfully unable to fly” due to travel bans and restrictions imposed by the government.
BA offered vouchers or rebooking and Ryanair only the option to rebook. The Competition and Markets Authority started an investigation in December.
It said this morning it is “concerned that, by failing to offer people their money back, both firms may have breached consumer law and left people unfairly out of pocket. It is now seeking to resolve these concerns with the companies, which may include seeking refunds, or other redress, for affected customers”.
This relates to “periods when it was unlawful in one or more parts of the UK for people to travel for non-essential reasons. It covers flights that were not cancelled, and does not cover any other situations”.
Andrea Coscelli, the chief executive of the CMA, said:
While we understand that airlines have had a tough time during the pandemic, people should not be left unfairly out of pocket for following the law.
Customers booked these flights in good faith and were legally unable to take them due to circumstances entirely outside of their control. We believe these people should have been offered their money back.
My colleague Julia Kollewe will have more on this as it unfolds on our business live blog: UK’s CMA launches action against BA and Ryanair over refunds – business live
Updated
UK government ministers could not justify spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money hiring consultants to assess applicants for its £500m Covid emergency support package for charities, despite clear bid processes already existing, according to cross-party MPs.
Ministers were also unable to explain why a team of political special advisers was given an unusually central role in deciding which charities would receive funding, or why some charities received cash even though their bids initially received low scores.
The public accounts committee (PAC) said there was a “notable opaqueness” surrounding decisions on how funds were distributed to charities, with little clarity about how the cash was shared regionally, or what impact it had.
MPs were examining the £513m allocated to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) last year to provide financial support for charities to help them meet increased demand during the pandemic. An additional £200m went to hospice charities via the Department of Health and Social Care.
The PAC chair, Meg Hillier, said that it was not the first time during the pandemic “worrying smoke” had been thrown up by ministers around Covid support funding decisions, with “growing instances of the official processes overridden without adequate explanations”.
“Exorbitant funds” having been spent by consultants without the impact being measured was a recurring pandemic theme, she added. “I fear one clear impact is the steady erosion of taxpayers’ trust that their money is being well spent in this national emergency.”
Read more of Patrick Butler’s report here: Millions spent on consultants for Covid scheme ‘not justified’, MPs say
UK minister – 'I wouldn’t make plans' on weddings, as Covid cases 'clearly rising;
The UK’s housing secretary Robert Jenrick is on media duties this morning, and he has said that coronavirus cases are “clearly rising” and that the government is reviewing a range of data to make a decision on the further lifting of restrictions on 21 June.
PA Media reports he told Sky News: “The prime minister is reviewing the data, and more data is coming in, which is very important. We created this five-week period between the stages of the road map and that has actually proved invaluable on this occasion, because it’s a finely balanced decision.
“We need to see that data of cases, which are clearly rising, but the link to hospitalisations and ultimately to death. So the prime minister is reviewing that ahead of the decision point, which is going to be 14 June – at that point of course he will let everybody know what the ultimate decision is.”
He was pressed particularly on the impact on wedding planning, and the current uncertainty over how many people will be able to attend ceremonies during July. The cap on 30 attendees was one of the restrictions the UK government roadmap touted being lifted “no earlier” than 21 June. Jenrick said:
We’ve always said that the roadmap is subject to review of the data, and that is what is happening right now. So whether it’s weddings, or international travel, or any of these other important topics, you always have to wait until the judgment is made on the basis of the data. I wouldn’t make plans until you’ve heard from the PM, if that’s important to you, but weddings can go ahead right now but just with the maximum 30 guests.
Robert Jenrick says "I wouldn't make plans until you've heard from the PM" if having a wedding with more than 30 guests is "important to you" #KayBurley
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 9, 2021
Read the latest on #COVID19: https://t.co/v5QUWyDohs pic.twitter.com/mucrllojkS
Updated
Mongolia holds Covid-impacted election amid rising cases
Mongolia is the latest country to begin holding an election where Covid restrictions are in place for voting, and where the handling of the pandemic is going to be a major factor in swaying the vote.
The winner will become the sixth president he vast landlocked nation of 3 million people since the peaceful transition from communism to democracy in 1992. Incumbent Battulga Khaltmaa of the Democratic party is barred by the constitution from seeking a second six-year term.
Voters are required to observe social distancing, and restrictions on public gatherings have severely curtailed campaign events, prompting candidates to shift much of their outreach to voters online.
Mongolia’s already ailing economy has been thrown into crisis due to the pandemic, with 69,022 cases and 324 deaths reported and the number of new local infections hitting a daily record last week.
That has forced the temporary closure of markets and other enterprises in the capital of Ulaanbaatar. Pandemic-related disruptions in demand for Mongolia’s chief exports such as coal and copper are also dragging on the economy.
Updated
Doctors, pharmacists and workplaces in Australia can now incentivise people to receive the Covid-19 vaccine by offering rewards including cash, prizes and complementary and alternative medicines, in a move a professor of public health and expert on drugs regulation, Prof Ken Harvey, has described as “utter craziness”.
Since Covid-19 vaccines became available in Australia from February, some doctors have expressed frustration that strict rules around the promotion and advertising of medicines enforced by drugs regulator the Therapeutic Goods Administration has meant they could not promote the vaccines as freely as they would have liked, including directly to patients during consults, or on social media.
The regulations are important because they prevent drugs companies and health professionals from making exaggerated claims about medicines and medical devices, and stop drug companies from advertising prescription drugs directly to consumers including through television, radio and social media.
But the regulations have also made vaccine promotion difficult during the pandemic.
In response, the TGA amended the rules, though only for the promotion of Covid-19 vaccines. While health professionals, corporate entities and media outlets can now communicate information publicly about TGA-approved Covid-19 vaccines, this information must be consistent with current commonwealth health messaging. Any promotion must not reference brand names such as Pfizer or AstraZeneca or any active ingredients that might identify the vaccines.
The rules do not allow any statements saying vaccines do not cause harm, or any false or misleading information.
Read more of Melissa Davey’s report here: Covid vaccine incentives – Australian doctors now allowed to offer cash, prizes and alternative medicines
Also worth noting, the UK has not been included in a mass update of international travel warnings from the US State Department mentioned earlier [see 6.46am].
PA Media notes that the department has changed its advice for dozens of nations, including France, Spain and Italy, from “Level 4: Do Not Travel” to “Level 3: Reconsider Travel”, according to its website.
The UK has been designated Level 3 since May 10. The Level 3 advice allows travel for fully vaccinated citizens, with a warning they should “avoid travel due to serious risks to safety and security”.
However, the UK is still subject to a presidential decree which prohibits non-US citizens who have been in the UK in the last 14 days from entering the country.
The full list can be found on the state department website here: US state department travel advisories
Updated
Overnight PA’s Joe Gammie has rounded-up some more response from the travel industry on the traffic-light system being used for international travel in England – and it is not a warm welcome for it.
London-based World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) said the Government must scrap the system which has “wreaked havoc” among consumers and businesses in order to save hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Portugal being moved from the green to amber caught many holidaymakers by surprise and left thousands of UK tourists scrambling to get home before new quarantine rules came into force on Tuesday morning.
The WTTC said that moving to a more transparent and easier to understand system will restore consumer confidence and provide a “much-needed” boost to the travel and tourism sector.
It warned that a further 218,000 jobs were at “serious risk” if international travel continued to be off limits for most of the summer, on top of the 307,000 jobs which were lost in the UK sector last year.
WTTC acting CEO Virginia Messina said: “It’s time the Government abandoned the hugely damaging traffic lights system. Consumers, airlines and the wider travel sector were promised a watchlist and three weeks’ notice of any changes from green to amber, and not just four days.
“It has been incredibly disruptive and costly for both travel and tourism businesses and consumers. It simply hasn’t worked. What’s needed now is a watertight government policy enabling those who’ve been fully jabbed to travel freely, and not have to self-isolate on their return.
“Those who are not fully vaccinated should be able to travel with proof of a negative test, like what we are seeing in the EU. The travel sector needs this now if it is to survive this summer as domestic travel alone will not save the day.”
It is already clear what one of the main topics of the UK’s morning media round is going to be: presenters trying to trip up ministers over Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s claim that he was going to reopen his theatres come-what-may and is willing to be arrested over it.
The composer said he may have to sell his six West End venues if the government does not remove restrictions that have forced venues to run with reduced capacities.
Lloyd Webber is preparing for a production of Cinderella, which is scheduled to open for previews on 25 June ahead of its world premiere in July. “We are going to open, come hell or high water,” Lord Lloyd-Webber told the Telegraph.
Asked what he would do if the government postponed lifting lockdown, he said: “We will say: ‘come to the theatre and arrest us.”’
On Sky News, Kay Burley has already been repeatedly pressing housing minister Robert Jenrick on whether Lloyd-Webber should be arrested.
For a government that indulged Dominic Cumming’s trip to Durham last year, it is always tricky for a minister to flat-out state that someone should just obey the rules.
I’m not sure this is the most enlightening way to tease out current government thinking on whether there will be a delay to England’s planned 21 June reopening. It may well feel like a very long morning of interviews for Jenrick.
Updated
Confidence in the EU’s ability to handle crises has taken a hit from Covid-19, a major survey shows, but dissatisfaction with national political systems is even higher and most people still support EU membership and want a stronger, more cooperative bloc.
The report’s authors suggested the polling should be a wake-up call for Brussels, warning that while public support for the broader European project remained high in many countries, it was fragile and would not easily survive more disappointment.
Europeans were “making a distinction between the need for cooperation and solidarity at a European level, and their confidence in the EU to deliver”, they said, and were unhappy the bloc had “missed an opportunity to prove its worth”.
The polling also suggested Brexit had changed Europeans’ views of the UK, with the prevailing view now seeing Britain – like the US – as a “necessary partner” to be “strategically cooperated with” rather than an ally, and one in four Germans and one in five French and Spanish respondents considering it as a rival or adversary.
The report, published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on Wednesday, suggested the bloc’s poor early response to the pandemic and slow initial vaccine rollout had dealt a heavy blow to confidence in its capabilities.
Read Jon Henley’s full report here: Europeans’ confidence in EU hit by coronavirus response
Chinese authorities in Guangdong have taken extraordinary measures to make sure students have been able to sit the crucial gaokao college entrance exams amid an outbreak in the city of Guangzhou. From AFP:
The local government has dispatched hundreds of taxis and buses to ferry students from neighbourhoods affected by the outbreak to exam venues, with state broadcaster CCTV showing footage of drivers in hazmat suits spraying down their cars.
Students were split into different rooms based on their level of Covid-19 risk, with contacts of confirmed cases taking the tests in smaller groups.
But infected students with mild symptoms had to take the tough exams solo in brightly lit isolation rooms in the hospital or special locations.
CCTV footage showed one student sitting at a lone desk and scratching his head as he read the exam paper, a bottle of hand sanitizer on the desk and officials monitoring him on a TV screen.
Other state footage showed masked examiners in protective clothing removing completed exam papers from infected students and hanging them up on a clothes-drying rack to be sprayed down with disinfectant.
Provincial officials inspected testing sites in Guangzhou late last week and urged examiners to make sure “students feel comfortable, parents are at ease and society is reassured,” the local government said.
Last year’s gaokao exams were delayed as schools hesitated to resume mass activities due to the coronavirus, which first emerged in the country in late 2019.
Life in China has since returned almost to normal, with authorities responding to sporadic outbreaks with aggressive testing and localised quarantines.
Guangzhou authorities shut down cinemas and karaoke bars across the city on Tuesday, and have locked down neighbourhoods and ordered travellers leaving the city to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test.
China reported eight locally transmitted Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, all of which were detected in Guangdong province.
Updated
Reuters: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has eased travel recommendations for more than 110 countries and territories, including Japan just ahead of the Olympics.
The Biden administration is forming expert working groups with Canada, Mexico, the European Union and Britain to determine how best to safely restart travel after 15 months of pandemic restrictions, a White House official said on Tuesday.
The CDC’s new ratings include 61 nations that were lowered from its highest “level 4” rating that discouraged all travel to recommending travel for fully vaccinated individuals, the agency confirmed on Tuesday.
An additional 50 countries and territories have been lowered to “level 2” or “level 1,” a CDC spokeswoman said. Countries ranked lowest for Covid-19 risks now include Singapore, Israel, South Korea, Iceland, Belize and Albania.
Among those now listed at “level 3,” are France, Ecuador, the Philippines, South Africa, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Honduras, Hungary and Italy.
Updated
A US pharmacist has been jailed for three years after pleading guilty to trying to spoil hundreds of doses of the Moderna vaccine because he was skeptical about them.
The US justice department said on Tuesday the 46-year-old man had also been ordered to pay $83,800 in compensation to the hospital at which he worked. According to a statement from the Wisconsin eastern district’s US Attorney’s office, he pleaded guilty to two counts of attempting to tamper with consumer products with reckless disregard for the risk that another person would be placed in danger of death or bodily injury.
According to justice department, in December 2020 the man deliberately removed a box of vaccine vials from a hospital refrigeration unit on two successive night shift. Moderna’s vaccine has to be stored and shipped frozen but can be stored for 30 days in standard-temperature refrigerators.
The statement said the man was generally skeptical of vaccines, and the Moderna vaccine specifically. It said he had shared his beliefs with co-workers for at least the past two years.
Intensive care beds for Covid patients in Malaysia have reached full capacity, according to the country’s health director general, who said the country’s pandemic remained at a critical level.
Malaysia entered a near total lockdown on 1 June, after daily cases rose to more than 9,000 last month. The increase in cases has been blamed on the more infectious variants of the virus, as well as gatherings held ahead of Eid al-Fitr.
Malaysia’s health director general, Noor Hisham Abdullah, said hospitals were facing a rise in severe cases of Covid, especially among older and clinically vulnerable people, who needed oxygen and respiratory assistance.
“These patients need a long recovery period to heal, due to serious complications from Covid-19,” he said.
The pressure placed on intensive care units, which are at 100% capacity, was very worrying, Noor Hisham said, adding some patients who needed critical care could not be placed in an ICU bed.
While new infections have fallen slightly over the past two weeks, there were still 82,797 active cases under treatment and observation as of 8 June.
Malaysia managed to contain the virus for much of 2020, and had recorded fewer than 500 fatalities by January. The country’s death toll has since risen to 3,536, while 627,652 cases have been recorded. Hospital morgues have been forced to use containers to cope with the rise in fatalities.
Malaysia imposed a national lockdown on 1 June, shutting schools and shopping malls. Only two people from each household are allowed to go out to buy essentials or seek medical treatment within 10km of their home. The manufacturing sector, however, has been allowed to continue operating at a reduced capacity.
Malaysia began its vaccination campaign in February, and 7.7% of the population has since received at least one dose
Hello and welcome to the continuing coverage of the global pandemic.
Here are some of the major developments in the last day.
- Guangzhou city in China has ordered the closures of cinemas, theatres, nightclubs and other indoor entertainment venues amid an outbreak.
- The US and the European Union are expected to support a renewed push into investigating the origins of Covid-19 after conflicting assessments about where the outbreak started, according to Bloomberg News.
- Residents of Melbourne in Australia will come out a tough lockdown on Thursday night, but will still be subject to restrictions including 25km travel limits
- Washington is also forming working parties with Brussels, Canada, and Mexico to determine how best to safely restart international travel. It came as the World Travel and Tourism Council said the UK government had to scrap its traffic light system for travel because it had “wreaked havoc”.
- Portugal will allow vaccinated US tourists into the country, Reuters reports. “We are in a position to approve the opening of non-essential travel and flights to people from the US to Portugal as long as they have a vaccination certificate,” economy minister Pedro Siza Vieira, cited by Portuguese radio Renascenca, said.
- Vaccine passports will be used for the first time at UK sporting events for England’s Euro 2020 group games at Wembley stadium, with those not fully vaccinated able to show proof of a negative lateral flow test taken within the previous 48 hours.
- World Bank president David Malpass said the institution does not support waiving intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organization, claiming it is out of concern that it would hamper innovation in the pharmaceuticals sector.
- South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa placed the country’s health minister on “special leave” over alleged links to a corruption scandal involving coronavirus communications funding.
- Pfizer is to begin testing its Covid-19 vaccine on a larger cohort of thousands of children under 12 years old in the US, Finland, Poland and Spain after selecting a lower dose of the shot in an earlier stage of the trial.
- A top White House official has urged state governors to work with the US Food and Drug Administration to extend the shelf life of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine as millions of unused doses nationwide near expiration.
- Many thousands of vaccine doses have been destroyed in African countries after exceeding their expiry dates amid a reluctance to be inoculated and a lack of medical infrastructure, while some jabs were donated relatively late in their shelf life.
- Music fans flocked to the first unrestricted European festival since the pandemic began over the weekend at an event in Albania that had 10,000 attendees across four days, with everyone showing proof of a recent negative test.
- Washington state is to give adults a free cannabis spliff after they receive a Covid jab in an attempt to accelerate vaccination uptake through a promotion coined “Joints for Jabs” by the state’s liquor and cannabis board.
Updated
