Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Europe’s vaccination campaign is “unacceptably slow” while rising infection rates in most countries across the region mean its virus situation is “more worrying than we have seen in several months”, the World Health Organization has said.
The WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said on Thursday that vaccines “present our best way out of this pandemic. Not only do they work, they are highly effective in preventing infection. However, their rollout is unacceptably slow.”
The ATP and WTA support Covid-19 vaccination but some players have shrugged their shoulders as they would have to remain in tournament bubbles regardless
As the Miami Open marched towards its climax, one of the many off-court discussions that have raged on during the event is the simple question of the sport’s attitude towards vaccination during the pandemic. Players were asked during the week about their stance, and a trend of ambivalence became clear.
For Andrey Rublev, the Russian world No 8, vaccination would make little difference to him as he would still have to remain in the tournament bubbles: “I don’t know,” Rublev said. “There is no reason. Just – I don’t know. Just by the feelings, because I never have any vaccine since I was a kid, so I don’t know. I feel OK with this way. I never had any problems with my health.”
A court in Belgium has ordered the government to either lift all coronavirus measures within 30 days or frame them properly in law, after a case brought by a human rights organisation challenged the use of ministerial decrees to implement them.
A night-time curfew and a ban on non-essential travel are among the restrictions currently in place in Belgium. The court in the capital, Brussels, said the state would have to pay fines of €5,000 (£4,256) a day if it fails to abide by the ruling.
We believe that in view of the restrictions on fundamental freedoms imposed to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, a debate in parliament was essential.
While restrictions on these rights and freedoms may of course be made, given the importance of the issues at stake and the need to protect the rights to life and health of individuals, they must be fair and proportionate.
Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said he will be vaccinated against Covid next week, according to Reuters.
“The doctors recommended that I get vaccinated,” he said during his regular morning news conference, without disclosing which day he planned to receive the shot.
Moscow says leaders discussed possibility of shipments and joint production amid shortage of doses inside Europe
Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron discussed Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and its use in Europe on a conference call on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Moscow’s statement said that among other subjects the Russian, German and French leaders discussed prospects for the registration of the vaccine in the EU and the possibility of shipments and joint production in EU nations. It did not say who raised the topic.
Half of people in the UK now have antibodies against coronavirus, either through infection or vaccination, tests conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.
According to the most recent coronavirus infection survey, an estimated 54.7% of the population in England would have tested positive for antibodies to coronavirus from a blood sample in the week ending 14 March 2021.
Murders of two volunteers and a nurse come one day after relaunch of national vaccination campaign
Two female volunteers and a nurse working door to door to vaccinate children against polio were shot dead by gunmen in two separate incidents in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Tuesday.
On the same day, government officials confirmed that an explosion had rocked Jalalabad’s health ministry headquarters but no casualties were reported.
Survey of experts in relevant fields concludes that new variants could arise in countries with low vaccine coverage
The planet could have a year or less before first-generation Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective and modified formulations are needed, according to a survey of epidemiologists, virologists and infectious disease specialists.
Scientists have long stressed that a global vaccination effort is needed to satisfactorily neutralise the threat of Covid-19. This is due to the threat of variations of the virus – some more transmissible, deadly and less susceptible to vaccines – that are emerging and percolating.
A third coronavirus vaccine will start being administered in the UK next month, joining the Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs already in use, the culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, has confirmed. Britain has ordered 17m doses of the Moderna vaccine, which has a 94% efficacy rate in trials, which are expected to start arriving in April. Dowden also insisted the government was confident it would be able to meet its target of getting people over 50 vaccinated by 15 April, and all remaining adults by the end of July
Beijing has donated millions of vaccines to developing countries but its largesse often comes with conditions attached
In May 2020, China’s president, Xi Jinping, told the World Health Assembly its Covid-19 vaccines were “a global public good”, and their distribution would be part of Xi’s vision of a “shared future for the people of the world to work as one”.
But in the months since, China’s alleged “vaccine diplomacy” has been consistently criticised internationally for being rolled out with conditions attached, with allegations of expatriate Chinese nationals being prioritised, and the distribution of vaccines seen as a coercive tool with which to wield geopolitical influence.
The Irish health minister has moved to suspend coronavirus vaccines from being given at a private hospital in Dublin after it used spare doses to vaccinate teachers at a fee-paying school.
Stephen Donnelly said it was “completely unacceptable” and has asked the Health Service Executive (HSE) to suspend vaccinations at the Beacon hospital, with the exception of already scheduled appointments.
Vaccines minister says first booster doses will go to the top four priority groups, which includes care home staff, NHS workers and clinically extremely vulnerable
Northern Ireland’s first minister, Arlene Foster, has received her first dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
The 50-year-old politician was given a shot of AstraZeneca’s vaccine by a GP at Castle Park leisure centre in Lisnaskea in her Co Fermanagh constituency on Saturday morning, according to PA.
There is a really positive community spirit here and across all of our centres in a collective effort to combat Covid-19. I am grateful to all of the wonderful team of medics and volunteers who are making this happen in GP practices and centres across Northern Ireland every day of the week.
Families in Israel are celebrating Passover following a successful vaccine rollout in the country in which more than half of its overall population have received both doses.
Giordana Grego, who immigrated to Israel from Italy, told AP:
For us in Israel, really celebrating the festivity of freedom definitely has a whole different meaning this year after what we experienced. It’s amazing that this year we’re able to celebrate together, also considering that in Italy, everybody is still under lockdown.
The AstraZeneca vaccine has made Prof Sarah Gilbert – who led the Oxford team that created it – one of the UK’s most famous modern scientists and turned the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company into a household name.
But almost half of all the AstraZeneca shots, destined for the arms of hundreds of millions of people around the world, are being produced by a 40-year-old Indian billionaire with a penchant for private jets and Picassos.
The war of words with the EU over vaccines has escalated as France’s foreign minister claimed Britain will struggle to source second Covid jabs but that Brussels would not be “blackmailed” into exporting doses to solve the problem.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, a close political ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, claimed that the UK’s success had been built on driving forward with first jabs without having secured the second doses necessary for full vaccination.
It was billed as the vaccine to deliver the world from Covid. But over the last six months, AstraZeneca – whose jab was designed to save thousands of lives for no profit – has found itself stumbling along an extraordinarily rocky road, facing accusations over the efficacy, supply and side-effects of its vaccine from all quarters, and being kicked about like a political football.
This week, AstraZeneca faced unprecedented public criticism in the US from a high-level scientific body claiming the British-Swedish company massaged the data from its long-awaited trial there. And in Italy, military police entered a factory on behalf of the European commission investigating allegations of 29m hidden doses, said to be intended for shipment to the UK. The commission, which is demanding AstraZeneca supplies more jabs to Europe, meanwhile drew up regulations which could block vaccine exports to the UK.
You’re scared of the virus; they’re scared of the vaccine. Could you try talking about your fears without confrontation, asks Annalisa Barbieri
I recently had my Covid-19 vaccine. One longstanding friend queried my decision and forwarded anti-vax conspiracy theories. Initially I responded by saying that we should respect each other’s choices and I would rather not argue with her about it. But after thinking it over, I felt angry and upset about her stance.
As my husband has recently recovered from Covid-19, I am assuming he will have some natural immunity to the disease, but he is undecided about getting the vaccine and hasn’t yet responded to invitations to do so. I think he is quite influenced by my friend’s husband and the couple’s negative attitudes towards science in general, which are linked to their religious beliefs (which I do not share).
UK prime minister Boris Johnson and US president Joe Biden have discussed the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine in a call on Friday, PA reports.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “The leaders discussed the fight against coronavirus and updated each other on their countries’ vaccine rollouts. The Prime Minister stressed that global access to vaccines will be key to defeating the pandemic.
“The Prime Minister and president agreed that combatting climate change will be a crucial component of building back better from the pandemic.”
Lebanon’s private sector helps speed up the country’s vaccination program by importing at least 1m doses of the Russian-made Sputnik V vaccines to aid the reopening of businesses.
The first shipment of 50,000 doses of Sputnik V arrived on Friday, making the country one of the few nations whose private sector is boosting its Covid-19 rollout.
Jacques Sarraf, a Lebanese businessman and head of the Lebanese Russian Business Council, said he hopes the Russian vaccines help safely reopen businesses around the country.
“Our first target will be private companies, factories, banks, and this is important to reactivate institutions,” he told The Associated Press in an interview.
This month Gibraltar’s health minister snapped a photo from her first dinner out in months, showing two glasses of red wine sitting prominently on the table and a face mask cast off in the background. “Operation freedom begins,” tweeted Samantha Sacramento alongside the photo.
Operation Freedom, the name given to Gibraltar’s vaccination programme, is now closing in on its target: in the coming days the British overseas territory will become one of the first places in the world where every willing resident over the age of 16 has been fully vaccinated.
Ursula von der Leyen has said the EU is transparent and open, and welcomes other countries to be transparent with their exports.
Speaking at a virtual summit, she said contracts should be fulfilled before exporting vaccines and should keep reciprocity, which needs to be transparent so supply chains stay intact.
The president of the European commission said companies that honour their contracts are important to the vaccine programme, both in Europe and worldwide.
EU leaders backed “global value chains” rather than support Brussels in using new powers to block Covid jab exports to highly vaccinated countries, despite being told that 21m doses had been sent to the UK.
At a virtual summit, attended briefly by Joe Biden, the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, highlighted the large shipments sent over the Channel, amounting to two-thirds of the jabs given in the UK.
The prime minister says the only way to restore a normal way of life is to beat Covid-19 and that 'the best path to freedom is down the cautious but irreversible roadmap that we've set out'. He also denies telling Tory MPs this week that the success of the vaccine programme was down to 'greed'