Category Archives: Vaccines and immunisation

‘Urgent need’: US to donate 750,000 Covid vaccine doses to Taiwan

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Offer a welcome boost for Taiwan, which says China has interfered with its attempts to secure vaccines internationally

The United States will donate 750,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses to Taiwan as part of the country’s plan to share shots globally, offering a much-needed boost to the island’s fight against the pandemic.

Taiwan is dealing with a spike in domestic cases but has been affected, like many places, by global vaccines shortages. It has also claimed that China is hindering its attempts to secure doses internationally.

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Other countries need Covid vaccine before British teenagers, ministers told

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Teaching leaders call for rollout of vaccination programme for pupils but joint committee says issue needs further debate

The government’s official advisers on vaccines will not be rushed into launching an immunisation programme for teenagers despite demands from teaching leaders to prioritise secondary school pupils.

It is understood that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) regards the ethical issues involved in vaccinating children to be delicately balanced and will require a complicated series of judgments about how to proceed in coming weeks.

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Share vaccines or climate deal will fail, rich countries are told

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Call for ‘solidarity’ in Covid fight as Boris Johnson calls on world leaders to help vaccinate global population by end of 2022

Progress on climate change could be scuppered by developing nations if they are not given equitable access to vaccines, Boris Johnson has been warned, as rich nations come under new pressure to donate more doses.

Figures compiled by the Observer show that the wealthiest nations, including the UK, have enough vaccines to inoculate their populations more than twice over.

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Naomi Wolf banned from Twitter for spreading vaccine myths

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Many social media users applaud termination of author’s account, but some have said move is a blow to freedom of speech

The author Naomi Wolf has been suspended from Twitter after using it to spread myths about the pandemic, vaccines and lockdown.

Wolf, who wrote the influential feminist work The Beauty Myth, holds staunch anti-vaccine views. Last month she told a US congressional committee that vaccine passports would “re-create a situation that is very familiar to me as a student of history. This has been the start of many, many genocides.”

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Doubts over England’s 21 June lockdown easing as delay plans drawn up

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Lifting of Covid measures reportedly could be put back to 5 July, as adviser says reopening this month ‘foolish’

The planned scrapping of remaining restrictions in England on 21 June has been thrown into doubt with reports that the government is looking at contingency plans including a two-week delay to allow more adults to be fully vaccinated.

The Telegraph and the Financial Times reported on Saturday that civil servants were drawing up contingency plans to delay the easing lockdown restrictions by two weeks, possibly to 5 July.

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Hancock says UK is the ‘vaccine priority’ – video

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Vaccinating children in the UK  against Covid-19 will take priority over donating doses to other countries around the world, Britain's health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Friday 4 June.

Hancock was speaking after health ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) rich countries met at the University of Oxford, where AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine was invented, and which comes before a leaders' meeting next week

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‘Running dry’: Zimbabweans turned away for vaccinations after shortages

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As staff sit idle in treatment centres, anger focuses on government failures to secure supplies as fears of a third wave increase

Hundreds of people are being turned away from vaccination centres in Zimbabwe as the country’s supplies of China’s Sinovac vaccine appear to have run out, triggering panic that the government is failing to acquire new stocks.

While the government said that it had taken delivery of more medicines in recent weeks, centres in Harare have not had any stocks for nearly a week and there is growing anger at the failure to communicate acute vaccine shortages, which are being reported around the country.

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UK tightens borders and travel rules as variants spark new alarm

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PHE data indicates dominant variant ‘more likely to cause serious illness’ as Grant Shapps warns of threat to reopening on 21 June

Ministers have moved to tighten Britain’s borders as new data suggests the Delta coronavirus variant is much more likely to cause serious illness and is circulating more rapidly within schools.

With England’s reopening on 21 June hanging in the balance, the government removed Portugal from the green list of countries and added seven more countries to the red list – moves that provoked fury within the travel industry and left many holidaymakers in limbo.

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Joe Biden outlines plan to share 80m Covid vaccine doses with world

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First 25m doses will be disbursed across Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa

Joe Biden has outlined how the US plans to share 80m Covid-19 vaccine doses with other countries, saying the first 25m doses will be disbursed across Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.

After months of mounting pressure from the international community, the Biden administration said last month that it intended to send the 80m doses of US-approved coronavirus vaccines overseas by the end of June, but did not outline which continents or countries would benefit until now.

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Biden provides details on plan to share 80m Covid vaccine doses – live

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Jen Psaki said she did not consider Monday to be the deadline for reaching a bipartisan deal on an infrastructure bill.

The White House press secretary said Joe Biden will “continue to have conversations with Democrats and Republicans about what the path forward may look like”.

As Jen Psaki briefs the press, Joe and Jill Biden are enjoying a bike ride in Rehoboth Beach, where they are celebrating the first lady’s 70th birthday.

The president gave a wave to reporters as he rode past them:

President Biden and ⁦@FLOTUS⁩ bike along a trail in Rehoboth Beach to celebrate her birthday pic.twitter.com/wpm33Y0JIY

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Covid variants: how much protection do the different vaccines offer?

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While restrictions in England could lift soon, impact of Delta variant on vaccination programme is uncertain

On Wednesday Boris Johnson said he saw nothing in the current data to stop the planned lifting of Covid restrictions in England on 21 June. But he said questions remained over how much protection the current vaccines offered against the Delta variant, B.1.617.2.

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Coronavirus Australia live update: regional Victoria restrictions easing but Melbourne lockdown remains; more NSW hotspots

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Talks continue between the state and the federal government on financial assistance as Melbourne faces second week in lockdown. Follow the latest news

Victoria’s press conference ends – we are just waiting for Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg now

Professor Allen Cheng is asked whether Victoria is just unlucky,or whether there are other factors that mean outbreaks spread further than in other states and says:

I think it is really difficult to know. We thankfully don’t have a huge sample size to say what might be different or not. I think there’s always an element of luck in this.

As I said before, if you have a person in the community with infection, it depends very much on who they are. And we certainly that it is 80% of people with COVID don’t transmit to anyone. 20% of them transmit at least to someone at a very small number transmit to a lot of people. So there is an element of luck to it.

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‘Critical’ lack of Covid vaccine supply in Melbourne forcing GPs to turn people away

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Undersupply so severe amid outbreak clinic forced to turn away residents of two care facilities

Melbourne GPs say they are being forced to turn away huge numbers of vaccine-seeking locals, including busloads of vulnerable residents from care facilities, because the commonwealth’s supply of doses has not increased to match the explosion in demand.

The latest outbreak has caused a huge increase in demand for the Covid-19 vaccine in Victoria, and the state is now recording daily vaccination numbers of above 20,000 in primary care, up from the roughly 2,300 doses administered on 24 May.

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Biden announces ‘month of action’ to get 70% of Americans vaccinated

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President dangles promise of a ‘summer of freedom’ to reluctant Americans and lays out plan to achieve Fourth of July target

Joe Biden has announced a national “month of action” to try to get at least 70% of Americans vaccinated against coronavirus before the Fourth of July holiday.

Touting the progress already made, and dangling the promise of a “summer of freedom” from Covid-19 to those reluctant to get a shot, the US president urged citizens, especially those under 40, to play a role in the “wartime effort” to defeat the virus.

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Boris Johnson on lifting Covid restrictions in England: ‘The data is ambiguous’ – video

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Boris Johnson has said there are currently no clear signals that he needs to scrap or delay plans to lift all remaining restrictions on social contact in England on 21 June, but he added that data on how effective vaccines would be at preventing a third wave was ambiguous.

Despite calls from some scientists for the government to push back the planned final stage of unlocking, the prime minister suggested he saw no reason yet to deviate from the roadmap

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‘When will you know?’: Richard Colbeck can’t say how many aged care workers are vaccinated – video

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The aged care minister Richard Colbeck has not been able to tell Senate estimates how many workers in the aged care sector have been vaccinated. 

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Coronavirus Australia live update: Victoria records three more Covid cases amid speculation over lockdown extension

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Minister Richard Colbeck comes under fire over aged care failures after outbreak in two Melbourne homes. Follow live updates

This has been an ongoing frustration for Mike Bowers and the visual reporters – some committees are throwing their weight around about where photographers and camera operators can stand to do their jobs – which means a lot of photos of the back of people’s heads.

The helpful people at the estimates Economic committee placed our photographic positions behind the heads of the Treasury Officials and Minister giving evidence, do I really have to explain again to members of the Aust senate why this will not work? #notTodayPlease @AmyRemeikis pic.twitter.com/ysRVbOttpy

Katy Gallagher asks Richard Colbeck who is responsible for vaccinating aged care staff.

Three minutes later, Colbeck says it is a “combined” program.

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MPs tell Johnson: you have a duty to help vaccinate the world

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Exclusive: group urges prime minister to tackle ‘desperate shortage’ in developing nations

Boris Johnson has a “moral duty” to immediately start matching each vaccine administered at home with a donated dose to poorer countries across the world, a cross-party group of MPs and peers has said.

Several Tory backbenchers joined the call, which puts further pressure on the prime minister to boost supplies given to developing nations facing a “desperate shortage” of jabs.

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If India variant starts a third wave, England’s Covid rules may have to stay

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Analysis: hopes of restrictions ending on 21 June are dwindling as highly transmissible variant spreads

Heralded as “freedom day”, 21 June has been a date circled in the diary by businesses, families and communities alike – a moment when coronavirus restrictions in England are expected to finally end, hopefully in a blaze of summer sunshine.

But new data has revealed that the variant of concern first detected in India, known as B.1.617.2, has continued to spread across England, with samples containing the variant now found from Cornwall to Canterbury, Bury to Bromley.

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Vaccine inequality exposed by dire situation in world’s poorest nations

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Analysis: the failings of the Covax programme, logistical issues and governments’ own inadequacies are making a bad situation worse

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.

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