Key developments
Here’s a roundup of what’s been happening over the last few hours:
- Ministers have been urged not to “threaten” NHS staff by forcing them to get vaccinated against coronavirus under plans being considered by the government.
- In the UK, ministers will adopt a cautious approach in deciding whether to ease lockdown on June 21, with hospitals already under pressure and health experts warning against “charging ahead”. Scientists have warned ministers that a third wave of coronavirus may have already begun in Britain, casting doubt on plans in England to lift all lockdown restrictions in three weeks’ time.
- A health expert affiliated with the World Health Organization has called on the US to share any intelligence it has about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak with the WHO and the scientific community.
- Authorities in Vietnam have detected a new coronavirus variant that is a combination of the Covid variants first identified in India and the UK and spreads quickly by air, the health minister has said.
- Egypt will lift restrictions it imposed earlier this month to curb the spread the coronavirus, including early closure of shops and restaurants, from June 1, the cabinet said.
- South Africa has extended its nightly curfew and limited the number of people at gatherings to slow the spread of Covid-19 as positive cases surge, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday.
- Only 1% of the 1.3 billion vaccines injected around the world have been administered in Africa – and that comparative percentage has been declining in recent weeks. It is a stark figure that underlines just how serious a problem global vaccine inequity has become. But the answer for the developing world is not as simple as delivering more vaccines.
- Italy has extended an entry ban for people coming from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as a continued precaution against the more transmissible Indian variant. The ban, which does not apply to Italian citizens, was introduced in late April and was due to expire on Sunday. It was prolonged until 21 June.
- Kenya has extended its nightly curfew by 60 days to slow the spread of Covid-19, the interior ministry said.
I’m signing off now. Thanks so much for joining me.
Brazil registered 43,520 new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, reaching a total of 16.5 million cases.
The country, which has the world’s second largest number of Covid-19 deaths, registered 874 new deaths, raising the total to 461,931.
German health ministers are to discuss fines for cheating at coronavirus test centres.
Since allegations of fraud at several providers were made public earlier this week and Spahn said on Saturday that there will be stricter controls, a debate has started on how to control the test centres and who should be in charge.
Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht told broadcaster ARD:
Where cheating takes place, everyone must know that this can by punished quite severely.
This message must also be sent out from the state, that such controls will be enforced and then the appropriate legal consequences will follow.
Spahn wants to involve local health departments and tax authorities in the controls.
“Most people have a very different respect for the tax office than they do for the health authority,” he told ARD.
Mexico recorded 1,307 coronavirus cases and 52 more deaths on Sunday, according to health ministry data, bringing the overall number of cases to 2,412,810 and the death toll to 223,507, Reuters reports.
Third wave of coronavirus may have already begun in Britain
Scientists have warned ministers that a third wave of coronavirus may have already begun in Britain, casting doubt on plans in England to lift all lockdown restrictions in three weeks’ time.
Experts cautioned that any rise in coronavirus hospital admissions could leave the NHS struggling to cope as it battles to clear the huge backlog in non-Covid cases.
Downing Street insisted it was too soon for speculation about whether the plan to lift all lockdown rules in England on 21 June could go ahead, prompting calls from the hospitality industry for the government to ensure it provided “advance notice” for struggling businesses of any “lingering” measures.
The vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, refused to deny that some restrictions such as mask wearing and working from home might remain in place to reduce the spread of the virus. Senior scientific advisers believe that, where possible, working from home makes sense beyond June because it would cut the number of people who come into contact with each other.
Ministers are grappling with whether a rise in cases and further spread of the Covid variant first discovered in India could throw Boris Johnson’s roadmap off track. Despite the progress of the vaccination programme, advisers are unsure to what extent the new infections – which are at levels last seen at the end of March – will translate into hospitalisations and deaths.
Outbreak modellers advising Sage expected a resurgence of infections even before the new variant, called B.1.617.2, was found in the UK. That is because, as restrictions ease, the virus can spread more easily among millions of people who have not been protected by vaccines. Research by Public Health England that suggests the new variant is highly transmissible and partially resistant to vaccines has heightened concerns that a third wave could overwhelm the NHS.
Read more by colleagues Aubrey Allegretti, Nicola Davis and Ian Sample here:
Updated
Only 1% of the 1.3 billion vaccines injected around the world have been administered in Africa – and that comparative percentage has been declining in recent weeks. It is a stark figure that underlines just how serious a problem global vaccine inequity has become. But the answer for the developing world is not as simple as delivering more vaccines.
From Africa to Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean, the same issues have been replicated. On top of finding enough doses, there have been logistical difficulties with delivery, problems over healthcare infrastructure and, in some countries, public hesitancy towards vaccines.
Africa’s lack of vaccines – and the erratic supply of those that are eventually delivered – remains the No 1 challenge, however. Only 28 million doses have been delivered on the continent so far – that’s less than 2% of the continent’s population – at a time when some wealthier countries have vaccinated well in excess of half their populations.
One issue is that 40 African countries, as the World Health Organization recently pointed out, had been relying on the Covax facility, the scheme designed to deliver cheap doses to promote vaccine equality. Supplies were supposed to come from the Serum Institute of India but have now been diverted for domestic use in India.
The WHO announced on Thursday that Africa needed at least 20 million AstraZeneca doses in the next six weeks to give second shots to all those who had received a first dose. In addition, another 200 million doses of approved vaccines are needed to enable the continent to vaccinate 10% of its population by September.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said last week:
Africa needs vaccines now. Any pause in our vaccination campaigns will lead to lost lives and lost hope.
It’s too soon to tell if Africa is on the cusp of a third wave. However, we know that cases are rising, and the clock is ticking so we urgently appeal to countries that have vaccinated their high-risk groups to speed up the dose-sharing to fully protect the most vulnerable people.
Read more here:
In the UK, ministers will adopt a cautious approach in deciding whether to ease lockdown on June 21, with hospitals already under pressure and health experts warning against “charging ahead”.
The continued spread of the Indian coronavirus variant has cast doubt on the ability to scrap restrictions, with ministers considering plans to keep some measures - such as the continued use of face masks and guidance on working from home – in place.
Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi acknowledged “we have to be cautious” because of concerns about the infection rate.
The British government will wait for the latest data on June 14 before deciding whether to proceed with lifting England’s lockdown the following week.
He said the vaccine programme aimed to offer a second dose to all over-50s by June 21, but he told Times Radio “I could do with more supply” because “I will be able to protect more people more rapidly”.
Asked whether the remaining restrictions could be eased if cases were still increasing, he told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show:
What I’m saying to you is we have to be cautious. We have to look at the data and share it with the country. Are we still vaccinating at scale? Big tick. Are the vaccines working? Yes.
But are infection rates too high for us to then not be able to proceed because there are too many people getting into hospital? I don’t know the answer to it.
But we will know it on, hopefully on the 14th, a few more weeks.
He said that as the virus becomes endemic “we’re going to have to live with a certain amount of Covid being transmitted”.
Pressed on whether there could be a partial lifting of restrictions, with mask-wearing and working from home continuing, Zahawi said: “We need to look at the data.”
Allies of Donald Trump took the unusual step of speaking out on Sunday in support of Joe Biden, regarding efforts to pinpoint the source of Covid-19 and find out if China knows more about the origins of the pandemic than it is letting on.
Biden said on Thursday he was expanding an investigation into the outbreak, following a departure from previous thinking by at least one US intelligence agency now leaning towards the theory that the virus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.
Michael McCaul, a Republican congressman from Texas, and Matthew Pottinger, Trump’s former deputy national security adviser who persuaded him to start using the controversial term “Wuhan virus”, both welcomed the development.
Pottinger told NBC’s Meet the Press:
It’s absolutely essential to find out what the origin of this thing is, it’s essential for us to head off the next pandemic, it’s essential for us to better understand the variants of the current pandemic that are emerging.
Both of these hypotheses that President Biden spoke of are valid, it could have emerged from a laboratory, it could have emerged from nature. Neither is supported by concrete evidence but there’s a growing amount of circumstantial evidence supporting the idea that this may have leaked from a laboratory.
Read the full story here:
South Africa has extended its nightly curfew and limited the number of people at gatherings to slow the spread of Covid-19 as positive cases surge, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Sunday.
The level 2 lockdown restrictions will start on Monday, forcing non-essential establishments like restaurants, bars and fitness centres to close by 10pm local time as the curfew will now start at 11pm instead of midnight and end at 4am, Ramaphosa said in an address to the nation.
All gatherings will be limited to a maximum of 100 people indoors from 250 and 250 people outdoors from 500. Where the venue is too small to accommodate these numbers, no more than 50% of the capacity of the venue may be used, Reuters reports.
Ramaphosa said according to the country’s health experts, the recent surge in new infections is due to the increasing number of social gatherings where people are not observing essential health protocols.
Funerals and so-called “after tears” parties, as well as camps and sporting activities at schools, have also been identified as other sites of increased transmission.
Ramaphosa said:
The Ministerial Advisory Committee on Covid-19 has therefore recommended that the country urgently implement further restrictions to limit the increase in infections.
It bases this recommendation on the sustained increase in new cases in the last 14 days, increased hospital admissions in almost all provinces and an increase in the proportion of Covid tests that are positive.
Over the last seven days, the country has recorded an average of 3,745 daily new infections, with cases rising by 4,515 over the past 24 hours to over 1.659 million cases. Over 960,000 people have been vaccinated in the country.
The provinces of Free State, Northern Cape, North West and Gauteng, which houses Johannesburg, have reached the threshold of a third wave of infections and “it may only be a matter of time before the country as a whole will have entered a third wave”, Ramaphosa said.
Updated
Egypt will lift restrictions it imposed earlier this month to curb the spread the coronavirus, including early closure of shops and restaurants, from June 1, the cabinet said.
Since May 6, stores, shopping malls and restaurants had to close by 9 pm after a rise in infections, Reuters reports.
Egypt imposed strict measures at the start of the pandemic, closing its airspace and setting nightly curfews to combat the spread of the virus, but it has remained largely open since June 2020.
As part of its efforts to save the tourism sector, it completed vaccinating workers in all hotels in Southern Sinai and Red Sea provinces and plans to vaccinate all residents of the two resorts of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheik, the cabinet said on Sunday.
Egypt had officially confirmed 260,659 coronavirus cases including 15,001 deaths as of Saturday.
However, officials and experts say the real number of infections is far higher, but is not reflected in government figures because of low testing rates and the exclusion of private test results.
Updated
Italy reported 44 coronavirus-related deaths on Sunday, down from 83 the day before and the lowest figure since mid-October, while the daily tally of new infections also dropped to 2,949 from 3,351, the health ministry said.
Italy has registered 126,046 deaths linked to Covid-19 since its outbreak in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the seventh-highest in the world, Reuters reports.
The country has reported 4.216 million cases to date. The number of deaths is often lower on a Sunday but the latest figure confirms a declining trend. People reported dead due to Covid-19 stood at 72 last Sunday and 93 a week before that, down from 139 on Sunday May 9.
The number of patients in hospital with the virus – not including those in intensive care – totalled 6,591 on Sunday, down from 6,800 a day earlier.
There were 27 new admissions to intensive care units, little changed from 29 on Saturday. The total number of intensive care patients stood at 1,061 from 1,095.
Only 164,495 tests for Covid-19 were carried out on Sunday, sharply down from 247,330 the day before, the ministry said.
Separately on Sunday, the health ministry said it had extended to June 21 the current ban on travellers arriving from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Updated
Authorities in Vietnam have detected a new coronavirus variant that is a combination of the Covid variants first identified in India and the UK and spreads quickly by air, the health minister has said.
After successfully containing the virus for most of last year, Vietnam is grappling with a rise in infections since late April that accounts for more than half of the total 6,856 registered cases. So far, there have been 47 deaths.
Nguyen Thanh Long said on Saturday, describing it as a hybrid of the two known variants:
Vietnam has uncovered a new Covid-19 variant combining characteristics of the two existing variants first found in India and the UK.
“That the new one is an Indian variant with mutations that originally belong to the UK variant is very dangerous,” he told a government meeting, a recording of which was obtained by Reuters.
The south-east Asian country had previously detected seven virus variants: B.1.222, B.1.619, D614G, B.1.1.7 – known as the UK variant, B.1.351, A.23.1 and B.1.617.2 – the India variant.
Long said Vietnam would soon publish genome data of the newly identified variant, which he said was more transmissible than the previously known types.
Read more here:
A health expert affiliated with the World Health Organization has called on the US to share any intelligence it has about the origins of the coronavirus outbreak with the WHO and the scientific community.
Last week the Wall Street Journal cited US intelligence agencies who said they were told that three unnamed members of staff at a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan were sick enough to go hospital in November 2019 with Covid-like symptoms.
US intelligence chiefs later stressed they did not know how the virus was transmitted initially, but that they had two theories: either it emerged naturally from human contact with infected animals, or it was a laboratory accident.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World This Weekend, Dr Dale Fisher said the theory that the virus had leaked from a laboratory was “not off the table”, but remained “unverified”. Fisher, the chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which is coordinated by the WHO, urged the US to share any intelligence it had. “The Wall Street Journal is not really the way to share science,” he said.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Jens Spahn, the German health minister, and his counterparts in the 16 federal states will on Monday discuss control mechanisms for coronavirus test centres following fraud accusations, a ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
Since allegations of potential fraud at several providers were made public this week and Spahn said on Saturday that there would be stricter controls, a debate has started on how to control the test centres and who should be in charge.
Germany offers its citizens at least one free coronavirus test per week, with several federal states providing one free test a day. The state pays €18 (£15) per test. As a result, private test centres have been set up en masse in recent weeks.
Some coronavirus test centres have been charging for more tests than they have carried out, daily Süddeutsche Zeitung and broadcaster ARD reported this week.
Lars Klingbeil, the secretary general of the opposition Social Democrats, told daily Tagesspiegel’s Sunday edition:
I find it incomprehensible that despite warnings Jens Spahn has left such loopholes for cheaters.
Spahn announced more random checks on Saturday:
Pragmatism is necessary these days. Those who exploit that must not be allowed to get away with it.
Spahn will have a call with his state counterparts on Monday morning and discuss next steps, the spokesman said.
The number of new coronavirus cases in Germany has fallen further this weekend. The Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases reported a 3,852 rise in cases on Sunday, 2,862 less than a week earlier. The seven-day rate of infection fell to 35 per 100,000 people, down from around 64 last week.
So far, Germany has seen 3.68 million cases; the death toll stands at 88,406. Around 42% of its population have been given at least a first shot of a Covid-19 vaccine and 17% have had their second dose.
Updated
That’s it from me, Caroline Davies, for today. Handing over to my colleague Nicola Slawson. Thanks for your time.
Ministers have been urged not to “threaten” NHS staff by forcing them to get vaccinated against coronavirus under plans being considered by the government.
The shadow Commons leader, Thangam Debbonaire, said it was not a “good idea” after the vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, admitted the proposal was being investigated alongside the existing consultation on making jabs mandatory for social care workers.
There is nervousness in Whitehall about doing anything to destabilise the vaccine rollout by requiring that people get the jab instead of keeping it voluntary – something that several behavioural scientists have warned could dampen take-up among already vaccine-hesitant groups.
But after concerns that a sizeable number of health and social care staff, who were among the first to be offered the vaccine, are reluctant to get jabbed, the government has been consulting on making vaccines mandatory for care workers, and is now expanding that to include all those working in the NHS.
Summary
Key developments so far today:
- UK vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi confirmed the government was considering whether coronavirus jabs should be compulsory for NHS staff. He said: “It’s absolutely the right thing and it would be incumbent on any responsible government to have the debate, to do the thinking as to how we go about protecting the most vulnerable by making sure that those who look after them are vaccinated.
- The UK government is waiting for the latest data on June 14 before deciding whether to proceed with easing the lockdown on June 21, Zahawi said.
- British regulators were still considering whether to offer jabs to children. Zahawi said: “Our own regulator has not yet approved giving vaccines to children. You have to make sure the vaccines are incredibly safe before you give them to children.”
- Italy has extended an entry ban for people coming from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as a continued precaution against the more transmissible Indian variant. The ban, which does not apply to Italian citizens, was introduced in late April and was due to expire on Sunday. It was prolonged until 21 June.
- The theory that the coronavirus outbreak began with a leak from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan has not been ruled out, according to a health expert affiliated with the WHO.
- India has reported its lowest daily rise in new coronavirus infections in 46 days at 165,553 cases during the previous 24 hours, while deaths rose by 3,460.
- Kenya has extended its nightly curfew by 60 days to slow the spread of Covid-19, the interior ministry said.
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People who remain chronically ill after Covid infections in England have had to wait months for appointments and treatment at specialist clinics set up to handle the surge in patients with long Covid.
- More than half of people in their 30s in England have received a coronavirus vaccination in a period of little over two weeks, new figures reveal.NHS England said that, since it began opening up the vaccine rollout to this age group on May 13, 53% of those aged 30 to 39 have been given at least one dose.
- The leaders of Australia and New Zealand have had their first face-to-face meeting since the coronavirus outbreak prompted both countries to close their borders. Australian prime minister Scott Morrison arrived in the tourist resort of Queenstown for an overnight visit on Sunday. He greeted his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern with a traditional Maori hongi, in which the pair pressed noses together.
People who remain chronically ill after Covid infections in England have had to wait months for appointments and treatment at specialist clinics set up to handle the surge in patients with long Covid.
MPs called on Matt Hancock to explain the lengthy waiting times and what they described as a “shameful postcode lottery” which left some patients facing delays of more than four months before being assessed at a specialist centre while others were seen within days.
NHS England announced in December that people with long Covid, or post-Covid syndrome, could seek help at more than 60 specialist clinics. But despite government assertions in January that the network of 69 centres was already operating, the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus found that some clinics were still not up and running three months later.
The theory that the coronavirus outbreak began with a leak from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan has not been ruled out, according to a health expert affiliated with the WHO.
Dr Dale Fisher, chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which is coordinated by the WHO, said the WHO’s investigation into the origins of the virus had only just begun.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World This Weekend he said: “The lab leak theory is not off the table, there’s more research to be done.”
An investigation visit by WHO experts earlier this year, which was highly controlled by the Chinese authorities, concluded it “extremely unlikely” that the pandemic began with a laboratory incident.
Fisher said this theory remained “unverified” despite a report, based on US intelligence, which claimed three members of staff at the lab had become sick with Covid-like in early December 2019.
He urged the US to share this intelligence. Fisher said: “We believe that all the laboratory workers have had serology [tests] done and all those antibody tests were negative and that was part of the reason why the risk was downplayed.”
Fisher added: “WHO could do itself a favour, by describing the plans for further investigation because people really haven’t heard anything since the February mission was done and therefore people think they’ve stopped looking for the origins, which is far from the truth, it’s only really just begun.”
He also suggested China’s secrecy about the origins of the virus could be driven by fears of compensation claims. Fisher said: “Any country that found any Covid-19 in its borders before the outbreak started would suddenly clam up. This is why I would argue that diplomacy is the way forward with this, creating a no blame culture. The only way you really can get to the bottom of this is just to say ‘look there’s no penalties, we just need to sort this out’.”
Kenya has extended its nightly curfew by 60 days to slow the spread of Covid-19, the interior ministry said, according to the Reuters news agency.
The move followed a decision by President Uhuru Kenyatta in late March to extend the 10pm to 4am curfew. A ban on political gatherings and processions that could turn into super spreader events was also extended for 60 days, as was a prohibition on overnight events and vigils, the ministry said.
When the first coronavirus cases were confirmed in Kenya in March 2020, the government closed schools, imposed a curfew, banned public gatherings and on multiple occasions restricted movement in and out of the most-affected regions.
Some restrictions, such as on schools, were eventually relaxed. The ban on public gatherings and processions and overnight meetings will stay in force, the ministry said.
Kenya has recorded 170,485 cases and 3,141 deaths, Ministry of Health data showed on Saturday, with a positivity rate of 8.9%. Covid-19 vaccinations began on March 5 and so far 968,733 people have received their first dose.
Updated
Boris Johnson faces a difficult decision about whether to end England’s lockdown on June 21 with hospitals already under “worrying” pressure, a health chief has warned.
According to the Press Association news agency, NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said hospital bosses were concerned about the transmissibility of the B1617.2 variant and the large number of people who have still to receive doses of the vaccine.
He warned that although hospitals were not expecting to be overwhelmed by a surge of Covid-19 cases, they were already stretched by going “full pelt” on dealing with the backlog of cases built up during the pandemic and urgent care needs. Hopson said:
Significant numbers of Covid-19 hospital inpatients will adversely impact care backlog recovery, (the) current degree of pressure on hospitals is worrying especially since we saw clear summer demand surges in the two years before Covid-19. But if, as evidence above suggests, success of (the) vaccination campaign means much lower levels of hospitalisation, serious illness and mortality, even with (the) new variant, that is very significant and important. This means there is a difficult decision to make for June 21.
He also suggested the government needs to consider the increased burden on hospitals in UK holiday hotspots in coming months with people not travelling abroad, saying one trust chief on the south coast had warned they will “struggle” to meet the “significant extra demand”.
Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) Government advisory panel, said there was still “quite a lot of uncertainty” around the June 21 date.
He told LBC radio scientists had “an awful lot of work to do” to analyse data on the link between cases and hospital admissions, while bearing in mind the situation with the Indian variant, to give evidence to the government.
South Korea will get 1m doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine this week mainly to inoculate military personnel, after the United States almost doubled a pledge made earlier this month, prime minister Kim Boo-kyum said on Sunday.
South Korea has reported a lower death toll than many comparable developed countries from Covid-19, but the government has come under criticism for a comparatively slow rollout of vaccines, Reuters reports. Less than 11% of its 52 million people have so far received a first dose.
US President Joe Biden, at his first summit with President Moon Jae-in earlier this month, promised to supply 550,000 shots for South Korean troops.
Kim said that offer had now been increased to 1m doses, and the shots will arrive this week.
Updated
On care homes, UK vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi today defended the government approach.
Boris Johnson’s former aide Dominic Cummings claimed the health secretary, Matt Hancock, had lied to the prime minister over tests being carried out on those discharged into care homes – a charge denied by Hancock.
Zahawi said the government had made the best use of the limited testing capacity available when the pandemic struck and it had put a “protective ring” around care homes.
Asked whether Hancock had promised care home residents would be tested before discharge from hospital, Zahawi told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show:
Matt Hancock was very much focused on delivery, I think it’s worth putting this in context … in the sense that in the eye of the storm, we were only able to do 2,000 tests a day. The diagnostics industry was almost non-existent in the UK.
He added Hancock had said that “people going into care homes absolutely should be tested and the system, the NHS, operationalised that” as testing capacity increased.
Asked why people had been sent home without tests, Zahawi said “hindsight is a wonderful thing”, adding:
We can sit here and sort of argue the toss about asymptomatic transmission … and when we really knew about that.
The whole point is you use every resource available to you, to the best of your ability, to save and to protect as many people as possible.
There have been more than 36,275 deaths involving Covid-19 in care homes since the pandemic began.
Zahawi said:
When the inquiry is held, and we will look at all these things in detail, we will of course examine where we could do better.
But to say that we didn’t deal with them to the best of our capability, with the resources that were available to us, is a mistake, is wrong.
Updated
Italy extends travel ban for India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
Italy has extended an entry ban for people coming from India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as a continued precaution against the more transmissible Indian variant. The ban, which does not apply to Italian citizens, was introduced in late April and was due to expire on Sunday. It was prolonged until 21 June, a spokesman for Italian health minister Roberto Speranza said in a statement.
Updated
Care homes were “forgotten” during the “dreadful” early stages of the Covid pandemic in the UK, a sector leader has said.
Mike Padgham, the chairman of the Independent Care Group, which represents providers in York and North Yorkshire, told Sky News it had been a “frightening” time for staff and residents.
Padgham was questioned in relation to the claim made by former Downing Street adviser Dominic Cummings to MPs this week that suggestions care homes were shielded were “complete nonsense”.
Padgham said:
I don’t believe myself there was a ring of protection thrown round us.
In those very early days it was difficult. We were forgotten. We’ve been forgotten over decades. That’s the only issue in social care.
We weren’t prepared. We weren’t ready. We didn’t have the PPE, we didn’t have the testing.
And it took the government many, many weeks to actually see what was happening in homes, despite our best efforts and protestations.
That is why providers … without their efforts, the figures … would have been much worse.”
Updated
Vietnam’s business hub Ho Chi Minh City will begin social distancing measures in the city for 15 days starting from Monday in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus, according to the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper reported on Sunday.
“All events that gather more than 10 people in public are banned city-wide, but the city is considering to lower the number of people to just five,” the newspaper reported. “While all citizens of Go Vap district are not allowed to go out if not necessary,” the report added.
Ho Chi Minh City earlier this week shut down shops and restaurants.
Updated
A leading scientist has called for stallholders at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan to be interviewed in any further investigation of the Covid-19 epidemic.
Dr Eddie Holmes has joined a growing chorus of voices calling for further investigation into the source of the pandemic. The US president, Joe Biden, has ordered the US intelligence community to intensify its efforts to study the origins of coronavirus, as the theory that the virus might have come from a lab in Wuhan gains traction.
He revealed that two of the 18 intelligence agencies are leaning towards the animal link and one leans more toward the lab theory.
It is still thought by many that the market in Wuhan is at the centre of the Covid-19 breakout and that the virus jumped from an animal species to humans. On 31 January 2021, a team of scientists led by the World Health Organization visited the market. However, according to their report only two stall operators were interviewed, and neither was engaged in trading wildlife.
Edward Holmes, an expert in the evolution and emergence of infectious diseases at the University of Sydney, who saw live wildlife being traded at the Huanan market in 2014, said: “As wildlife present the greatest risk, this should have been the priority in the WHO’s investigation of the market.
“However, I’m not sure who controlled the WHO’s schedule so it may have been out of their hands,” he added. “At the very least these stallholders need to be reinterviewed in any additional investigation into the virus origins.”
Taiwan reported 355 domestic Covid-19 cases on Sunday. After recording just a handful of daily infections for months, Taiwan is dealing with relatively large numbers of community transmissions, though infection rates are starting to fall.
It has only vaccinated around 1% of its more than 23 million people but has almost 30 million shots on order, from AstraZeneca Plc, Moderna Inc and two domestic firms.
The UK government is waiting for the latest data on June 14 before deciding whether to proceed with easing the lockdown on June 21, vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi said.
Asked whether that step could be taken if cases were still increasing, he told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show:
What I’m saying to you is we have to be cautious. We have to look at the data and share it with the country.
Are we still vaccinating at scale? Big tick. Are the vaccines working? Yes. But are infection rates too high for us to then not be able to proceed because there are too many people getting into hospital? I don’t know the answer to it.
But we will know it on, hopefully on the 14th, a few more weeks.
He said that as the virus becomes endemic “we’re going to have to live with a certain amount of Covid being transmitted”.
On the possible compulsory vaccination of NHS staff in the UK, the shadow cabinet minister Thangam Debbonaire said “threatening” NHS staff to have the vaccine was not a good idea.
The shadow Commons leader told Sky News:
Given we have got a recruitment crisis in parts of the NHS I think it’s far more important we try and work with staff rather than against them. Threatening staff, I don’t think is a good idea.”
Public Health England and the NHS had been successful when they had worked with people to address their doubts and answer questions about the jab, she said.
I would like to see the government work with the NHS and social care staff.
Updated
More on the question of vaccinating children, one expert has said that the emergence of new variants could influence the decision in the UK.
Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), told Times Radio that there were “debates” about the possible risks of “very, very rare complications” associated with vaccination, which had to be balanced against the “certainty” that someone can get “very severe complications” by catching Covid.
Speaking in a personal capacity, he added:
It may well be that actually giving children vaccines will become a clearer option once we know more about the disease in children and whether the new variants are spreading further into the paediatric population and causing more significant disease. That could certainly change the risk-benefit ratio.”
Prof Openshaw said the UK placed an emphasis on “public health benefits” and therefore “vaccinating those who may be transmitting disease, sometimes unknowingly, is a perfectly good justification for vaccination”.
He added:
The new variants extending further down the age range and being of quite high prevalence even in children as young as four, it may be that actually children and school children are going to be a more important part of the transmission chain as the virus becomes more transmissible as new variants arise.
So... the benefits might change and that might affect the decision about whether to vaccinate children in the future.
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British regulators were still considering whether to offer jabs to children, UK vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News:
Our own regulator has not yet approved giving vaccines to children.
You have to make sure the vaccines are incredibly safe before you give them to children.
The Pfizer jab has been approved for use in 12-year-olds by regulators in the European Union, US and Canada and Zahawi said the “infrastructure” was in place to jab children in the UK if required.
But he said the issue was complicated because the main benefits of the jab were not necessarily felt by children themselves but instead by those around them. He said:
On the whole you are vaccinating to protect their families and their communities and the country.
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UK considering compulsory vaccination for NHS staff
UK vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi confirmed the government was considering whether coronavirus jabs should be compulsory for NHS staff.
He told Sky News:
It’s absolutely the right thing and it would be incumbent on any responsible government to have the debate, to do the thinking as to how we go about protecting the most vulnerable by making sure that those who look after them are vaccinated.
There is precedent for this, obviously surgeons get vaccinated for hepatitis B, so it’s something that we are absolutely thinking about.
He also said that the World Health Organisation investigation must be able to fully investigate the origins of the pandemic.
The Sunday Times reported that British agents believe it is “feasible” that the crisis began with a coronavirus leak from a Chinese research laboratory in Wuhan.
Asked about the report, Zahawi said:
I think it’s really important that the WHO is allowed to conduct its investigation unencumbered into the origins of this pandemic and that we should leave no stone unturned to understand why – not only because of the current pandemic that has swept the world but also for future-proofing the world’s capability to deal with pandemics.
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Russia reported 9,694 new cases on Sunday, the highest number since the end of March, which took the national tally to 5,063,442 infections.
The Russian coronavirus taskforce said that 355 more deaths of Covid-19 patients were confirmed in the past 24 hours, bringing the official death toll to 121,162.
The federal statistics agency has kept a separate count and has said Russia recorded around 250,000 deaths related to Covid-19 from April 2020 to March 2021, Reuters reports.
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The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) chief executive Emma McClarkin has called on the UK government to provide advance notice to businesses if restrictions are to remain after June 21. McClarkin acknowledged the government was in a “difficult situation” but said Whitehall had to “stick to its road map”.
She told BBC Breakfast:
We need the Government to stick to its road map of removing those restrictions by the 21st of June if we want to see the great British pub really begin its recovery.
What I need to say is June 21 is absolutely critical to the recovery of the sector. Recovery day only starts when the restrictions are removed.
If the Government does leave any lingering restrictions in play then they really need to give us advance notice of that and it needs to talk seriously about financial compensation.
But right now we are asking the Government to stick to their road map.
The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 3,852 to 3,679,148, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed on Sunday. The reported death toll rose by 56 to 88,406, the tally showed.
Malaysia to set up more vaccination centres
Malaysia is planning to set up more mega vaccination centres and get private doctors to join immunisation efforts, after five consecutive days of record daily coronavirus infections, Reuters reports.
Science minister Khairy Jamaluddin told a virtual news briefing on Sunday that the government will set up another five mega vaccination centres around the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and are considering two in the northen state of Penang and in the southern state of Johor.
Nearly 6% of the country’s 32 million people have been vaccinated, according to the website of the governmental Special Committee for Ensuring Access to COVID-19 Vaccine Supply.
Khairy said the government is also looking to allow drive-through vaccination centres in the country, after guidelines are firmed up.
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Friday announced a nationwide total lockdown from June 1-14 in an effort to curb the spread of the virus.
Malaysia reported 6,999 new cases on Sunday, bringing the total infections in the country to 565,533.
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More than half of people in their 30s in England have received a coronavirus vaccination in a period of little over two weeks, new figures reveal.
NHS England said that, since it began opening up the vaccine rollout to this age group on May 13, 53% of those aged 30 to 39 have been given at least one dose.
The data comes as Prof Stephen Reicher, a psychologist on the Sage sub-committee advising ministers on behavioural science, said the government was in a “pickle” because it appeared to have abandoned the “data not dates” principle.
The NHS, meanwhile, is asking people aged 50 and older, as well as those who are clinically vulnerable, to bring forward their second Covid-19 vaccination to help combat the spread of the B1.617.2 variant first identified in India.
It follows the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommending earlier this month that the second dose interval be shortened from 12 weeks to eight for people in priority cohorts.
Updated
India today reported its lowest daily rise in new coronavirus infections in 46 days at 165,553 cases during the previous 24 hours, while deaths rose by 3,460.
The south Asian nation’s tally of infections now stands at 27.9m, with a death toll of 325,972, health ministry data showed on Sunday.
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Good morning, and welcome to the coronavirus global blog. Caroline Davies here, taking you through key developments today. You can get in touch on caroline.davies@theguardian.com.
In the UK, there are calls for a more informed debate on the planned lifting of all legal limits on social contact in England on June 21 as Labour questioned if the move would proceed. The continued spread of the Indian coronavirus variant has prompted experts to argue restrictions should remain in place until more people have received both doses of a vaccine amid reports ministers are drawing up plans for a partial end of lockdown. NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said a “much better quality of debate” was needed on the implications of easing measures, according to the BBC. Writing in The Observer, opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer said “weak, slow decisions” by the Government on border policy had allowed the Indian variant to spread.
Meanwhile, leaders of Australia and New Zealand have had their first face-to-face meeting since the coronavirus outbreak prompted both countries to close their borders. Australian prime minister Scott Morrison arrived in the tourist resort of Queenstown for an overnight visit on Sunday. He greeted his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern with a traditional Maori hongi, in which the pair pressed noses together. Morrison is the first major world leader to visit New Zealand since both countries shut their borders last year to contain the virus. The neighbours opened a quarantine-free travel bubble last month, although a recent outbreak of the virus in Melbourne has prompted New Zealand to suspend the arrangement with Victoria state.
