Category Archives: Vaccines and immunisation

Coronavirus live news: UK put 600,000 vaccine doses into arms on Friday; Brazil crisis likened to ‘raging inferno’ by WHO

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Global death toll tops 3m; pandemic made 2020 ‘the year of the quiet ocean’, say scientists

Mexico’s recorded another 4,157 coronavirus cases and 535 new deaths on Saturday, according to health ministry data, bringing the total number of cases to 2,304,096 and 212,228 deaths.

Israel will lift its mandatory requirement to wear a mask outdoors on Sunday, but wearing masks in closed spaces will remain compulsory.

Haaretz reports:

This comes as a result of Israel’s Health Minister Yuli Edelstein’s instruction to his ministry’s director general Chezy Levy on Thursday to sign an order lifting the restriction, after the opinion of ministry professionals stated that masks can be dispensed with in open-air areas due to low coronavirus morbidity.

The statement from Edelstein’s office on Thursday stressed that Israelis would still be required to wear a mask indoors, and this message was echoed by Israel’s coronavirus czar, Professor Nachman Ash.

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UK church leaders warn against ‘dangerous’ vaccine passport plans

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Hundreds of Christian clergy say proposal could ‘bring about the end of liberal democracy’

Hundreds of UK church leaders have told the prime minister that plans to use vaccine passports for entry into venues is “one of the most dangerous policy proposals ever to be made in the history of British politics” with the “potential to bring about the end of liberal democracy as we know it”.

An open letter to Boris Johnson signed by more than 1,250 clergy from different Christian denominations across the UK says the “introduction of vaccine passports would constitute an unethical form of coercion and violation of the principle of informed consent”.

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Coronavirus live news: India extends record daily run of new infections; Japan to expand quasi-emergency measures

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Spike in Indian cases spurred by hundreds of positive tests at major religious gathering; Japan to extend Covid restrictions to 10 regions

The head of the world’s largest vaccine maker directly tweeted the US president Joe Biden on Friday urging him to lift an export ban on raw materials desperately needed to make more coronavirus shots.

The unusual step by Serum Institute (SII) chief Adar Poonawalla underlined the crisis in providing vaccines to developing nations, many of which rely heavily on the firm for supplies, AFP reports.

Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the U.S., I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details.

Johnson & Johnson reached out to rival Covid-19 vaccine makers to join in an effort to study the risks of blood clots, but Pfizer and Moderna declined, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Only AstraZeneca, which had been buffeted by similar blood-clotting concerns for weeks, agreed, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

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Australia records first death from blood clots likely linked to AstraZeneca Covid vaccine

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NSW woman, 48, died this week after receiving vaccine on 8 April, federal health authorities say

Australia’s drugs regulator has determined the death of a 48-year-old diabetic woman who developed blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine was likely to be linked to the vaccine.

After a meeting of Australia’s vaccine safety investigation group on Friday, the Therapeutic Goods Administration said experts had concluded the case of the New South Wales woman, who died this week, “was consistent with causal association to immunisation”.

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Malawi to bin 16,000 AstraZeneca doses amid fears of rise in vaccine hesitancy

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Authorities act to counter rumours out-of-date shots are being used as people drag their heels over being vaccinated

More than 16,000 expired AstraZeneca Covid-19 doses are to be destroyed in Malawi as concerns over vaccine hesitancy increase.

The vaccines are among 102,000 doses donated by the African Union (AU) to the Malawian government last month.

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Coronavirus live news: Merkel will receive AstraZeneca vaccine; Northern Ireland lockdown easing to be unveiled

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German chancellor will be vaccinated on Friday; NI executive to outline reopening dates; Cambodia ‘on brink of death’, says premier

Poland’s top vaccination official said he did not see any obstacle to the country’s inoculation program from the “moral” reservations expressed by the powerful Catholic Church about two vaccines.

Poland’s Episcopate bioethical team on Wednesday said the use of the AstraZeneca and the Johnson & Johnson vaccines raised “serious moral opposition.”

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Australia news live: NSW Aboriginal deaths in custody inquiry recommends sweeping reforms; dance squad blasts ABC over navy twerking coverage

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NSW MPs call for end to police investigating themselves on 30th anniversary of royal commission; Queensland eases Covid restrictions; fashion designer Carla Zampatti farewelled in Sydney. Follow updates live

Scott Morrison is speaking now.

Now that unemployment has hit 5.6%, the treasurer Josh Frydenberg has signalled he will revisit the budget strategy - which is that the Morrison government won’t tighten fiscal policy until unemployment is “comfortably within” 6%.

Frydenberg told reporters in Canberra that 5.6% was not “comfortably within” 6% and that now is “not the time for austerity”.

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Johnson & Johnson vaccine use will remain paused in US amid evaluation

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CDC advisers say they need more evidence to decide if cases of unusual blood clots were linked to the Covid vaccine

Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine will remain in limbo a while longer after US health advisers told the government Wednesday that they need more evidence to decide if a handful of unusual blood clots were linked to the shot – and if so, how big the potential risk really is.

The reports are exceedingly rare – six cases out of more than 7m US inoculations with the one-dose vaccine. But the government recommended a pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccinations this week, not long after European regulators declared that such clots are a rare but possible risk with the AstraZeneca vaccine, a shot made in a similar way but not yet approved for use in the US.

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Coronavirus live news: Greece to end quarantine from some countries next week; France stops all flights from Brazil over variant fears

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Greece to end quarantine for EU and five other countries including the UK; French PM says P.1 variant is partly to blame for fuelling third wave in France; UK study to examine if vaccines can be safely mixed

The Danish Health Authority confirmed on Wednesday it would halt entirely the use of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in its inoculation programme.

“The Danish Health Authority has decided to continue the vaccination against COVID-19 without the vaccine from AstraZeneca,” it said in a statement.

The suspension of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine could delay efforts to vaccinate most people in the EU by over two months to December, scientific information and analytics company Airfinity forecast on Wednesday.

“If the EU can’t use the J&J vaccine indefinitely it could push the timeline for vaccinating 75% of the population back into December,” London-based Airfinity said in a forecast update provided to Reuters.

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Hope, humour and zero-hours contracts: what four months as a vaccinator has taught me

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After sitting alone in my flat for most of last year, I jumped at the chance to deliver Covid vaccines. This is what I’ve learned

Pushing a needle through fake skin is not much like the real thing. So I discovered when I vaccinated my first patient at a mass vaccination centre in north London. You feel for a person’s shoulder blade and give the injection two finger-widths below the tip of the shoulder, in the middle of the deltoid muscle. In training, you’re given a salmon-coloured “arm” of silicone sponge to practise on. In reality, arms – like the people they belong to – are unique; it takes a little while to confidently feel your way with each new person you close the NHS regulation blue curtain behind.

When I saw an advert for people willing to train as vaccinators in early January, I applied at once. The idea of being an active part of a historic vaccination rollout was thrilling. I have clinical experience as an assistant psychologist, can put people at ease and was very ready for a meaningful break from spending 10 hours a day looking at a screen alone in my flat. The training was delivered by a group of witty, absolutely zero-bullshit female clinicians wearing Crocs. The conversation was sharp; I adored them immediately. We covered infection control (including a sobering experiment with UV gel; trust me, you need to clean your thumbs), PPE, life support and, of course, learning to inject. I remember a surreal moment, looking around a room full of lawyers, medical students, psychotherapists, cycling instructors and shop managers in full PPE, all bound by the shared purpose of wanting to do something.

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Ballparks, stadiums and race tracks: US mass vaccination sites – in pictures

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As the US entered the latest phase of the fight against the pandemic, photographer Filip Wolak felt it was important to capture the unprecedented efforts that the healthcare communities put into place to help mitigate the virus’s lasting effects.

This photo project attempts to capture the largest vaccination sites across the country. Some of the sites pictured were documented in their early stages when the vaccination supply was still limited – Wolak hopes to return to them again.

The photographs were taken from a small airplane, overflying the locations at a high altitude. This point of view allowed Wolak to capture the magnitude of these efforts. In some of the cases, multiple images were combined into one, which allowed a wider reach without degradation of details

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Will we need a Covid pass to get into the pub?

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The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has announced plans for a domestic Covid-status certificate. We look to Israel, where a similar scheme has been introduced, and discuss how it might work here

Last week, Boris Johnson set out plans for a domestic vaccine passport system to help the country emerge from lockdown.

To see how it might work, Anushka Asthana talks to the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, Oliver Holmes, about life in Israel, where the government introduced a similar scheme in February.

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‘A tsunami of cases’: desperation as Covid second wave batters India

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Doctors speak of a new variant of the virus that appears to be spreading faster than ever before

Dr K Senthil had feared it was coming.

He had feared it as he saw the reckless crush of hundreds of people taking part in large wedding parties over the past months, feared it as he saw the maskless faces of shoppers at the market, feared it as he witnessed thousands come together for political rallies in the ongoing elections in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where he is the president of the state medical council.

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Coronavirus live news: Johnson & Johnson to ‘proactively delay’ vaccine rollout in Europe over blood clot reports

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Move to delay vaccine deployment in Europe comes after six blood clot cases detected among Johnson & Johnson jab recipients in US

South Africa has temporarily suspended the rollout of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, its health minister said on Tuesday, after US federal health agencies recommended pausing its use because of rare cases of blood clots.

Health minister Zweli Mkhize told reporters:

I had urgent consultations with our scientists, who advised that we cannot take the decision by the FDA lightly. Based on their advice, we have determined to voluntarily suspend our rollout until the causal relationship between the development of clots and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is sufficiently interrogated.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Tuesday it was reviewing cases of rare blood clots in women who had taken Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine after US federal health authorities recommended pausing the use of the shot.

In a statement to Reuters, the EMA said it was “currently not clear whether there is a causal association between vaccination” and the conditions.

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US decision to pause J&J jabs is another blow to global Covid fight

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Analysis: rare side-effects mean that confidence in both the Johnson & Johnson and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines is now shaken

The call in the US for a pause in the use of the single-shot Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine is another blow to hopes of vaccinating the whole world as fast as possible.

Health agencies recommended that US states pause use of the jab while investigations take place into six cases of women who have experienced rare blood clotting events combined with low platelets in the days following vaccination.

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How UK doctor linked rare blood-clotting to AstraZeneca Covid jab

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Prof Marie Scully developed a diagnostic test at University College London hospital after seeing rare side-effect in patient

Marie Scully was alarmed and puzzled. “It didn’t make sense,” she said. The consultant haematologist at University College London hospital (UCLH) had seen patients with blood clots in the brain and low platelets before and, although it was unusual, she always knew why. But there was no reason for the condition of the young woman in her 30s she was treating in early March.

“Now when you have blood clots in the brain like that there’s always a cause, and it was difficult to pinpoint the cause,” said Prof Scully. “It didn’t fit our normal diagnostic boxes, let’s say. She was a young woman with cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, and she had a low platelet count.”

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African health workers left without Covid jabs as paltry supplies dwindle

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Fear of third wave and new variants as sub-Saharan vaccine distribution is dogged by supply disruption

Millions of healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa continue to risk their lives to fight Covid-19 as authorities across the continent struggle to obtain and distribute vaccines to frontline medical staff.

Though hundreds of millions of people in western nations are now protected from the virus, doctors, nurses and others on the frontline of the fight against Covid in Africa will have to wait months, or even years, for a vaccine.

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Australia news live: Christine Holgate says she was ‘bullied’ and Australia Post chairman fabricated evidence

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Holgate says she was ‘humiliated’ by prime minister Scott Morrison; man dies of coronavirus in Queensland. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
• Australia won’t purchase Johnson & Johnson jab
• AstraZeneca blood clotting: what is this rare syndrome?
• Andrew Laming blocked from recontesting next election
• More than half of Australians think vaccine rollout is too slow

Wow, it’s been a busy few hours! With that, I’m going to hand you over to Michael McGowan to take you through the rest of the afternoon.

Christine Holgate gave some evidence about executive bonuses. It is a little confusing and we’ll come back to it, because even the senators seem a little confused about what is being said. And it’s important we get it right, so I’ll head back over the transcript to see what she was saying there.

Liberal senator Sarah Henderson has the question call now. She says she has been very moved by Holgate, and what she went through. She asks whether she thinks the questioning on the 22 October estimates hearing was fair.

Holgate:

In all honesty, I didn’t consider whether it was fair or not fair. I absolutely respect and Senator Carr, forgive me but you’ve asked me many tough questions over my time with you (“that’s my job,” Carr says)...and I was about to say ‘that’s your job’.

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All over-50s and high-risk groups in UK offered vaccine ahead of target date

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Achievement hailed by PM as ‘hugely significant milestone’ means people in late 40s should be next to be immunised

All over-50s and high-risk groups in the UK have been offered a coronavirus vaccine a few days before the mid-April deadline set by the government – meaning the second phase of the rollout to younger cohorts can now begin.

Despite fears of a supply slowdown and possible knock in confidence after a change in advice on who could get the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, Boris Johnson hailed the passing of “another hugely significant milestone”.

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Covid vaccine passports: what can we learn from Israel? – video explainer

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Israel became the first country in the world to test vaccine passports when it announced the 'green pass' scheme in February. The passes allow people who have had two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine to return to restaurants, theatres and sport events.  With many countries planning to reopen after their vaccination campaigns, the Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent, Oliver Holmes, examines the lessons that could be learned from Israel's rollout

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