Category Archives: Vaccines and immunisation

Coronavirus live news: Australia begins vaccine rollout; Israel says Pfizer jab 96% effective

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PM Scott Morrison one of the first to be vaccinated; Ireland’s pubs to stay closed until summer; all UK adults to be offered vaccine by ‘end July’. Follow latest updates

Reuters: Israel reopened swathes of its economy on Sunday in what it called the start of a return to routine enabled by a Covid-19 vaccination drive that has reached almost half the population.

While shops were open to all, access to leisure sites like gyms and theatres was limited to vaccines or those who have recovered from the disease with presumed immunity, a so-called “Green Pass” status displayed on a special health ministry app.

In Australia the state of Victoria has recorded no new locally-acquired cases as the government commits $143m of support for businesses unable to operate on Valentine’s Day due to the state’s five-day lockdown.

Vaccinations will start for eligible high-risk recipients on Monday in Victoria, where there were no local or overseas-acquired coronavirus diagnoses in the latest 24-hour period, with more than 10,300 tests conducted.

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Ban on outside sport can end, top scientist urges Johnson

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Call comes as prime minister aims for all adults to be vaccinated by July

Data on the number of Covid-19 cases is now so encouraging that outdoor sports for children and small numbers of adults should be allowed immediately as part of an accelerated easing of the lockdown, a leading scientist and adviser to government has told the Observer.

With the prime minister expected to take a cautious approach to lifting restrictions in a statement to the House of Commons on Monday, Prof Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University, whose work feeds into the Sage committee’s sub-group Spi-M, said the data showed there was no need for the government to be “ultra-cautious”.

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Israel said to have used Covid vaccines as bargaining tool in Syria prisoner swap

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Russia mediated deal in which Israeli woman was exchanged for two Syrian shepherds

Israel secured coronavirus vaccines for the Syrian regime as part of a Russian-mediated prisoner swap agreed this week, according to an Israeli source and local media reports.

The source, who requested anonymity, did not state the number of vaccines, or whether they were from Israel’s own supply. Barak Ravid, an Israeli reporter, wrote on Twitter that the country had paid Russia $1.2m (£850,000) for its Sputnik V vaccine as part of the deal, citing “foreign sources”.

The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced on Friday that a young Israeli woman who crossed the border into Syria was heading back to the country. In return, the Israeli government had returned two Syrian shepherds it had been holding, he said. It is not clear why the Israeli woman entered Syria.

The press in Israel had initially referred to another unspecified but apparently significant clause in the deal, adding that the country’s military censor had blocked publication. Under Israeli law, the agency can prevent reporting on topics it deems related to security issues.

The Times of Israel website said a “central aspect of the agreement” had been barred by the censor “despite the fact that the matter would be seen as deeply controversial to the Israeli public”.

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South Africa leads backlash against big pharma over Covid vaccine access

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Pressure mounts for patent waivers to allow poorer countries to develop their own manufacturing capacity to boost availability

The domination of global medicine by major pharmaceutical companies needs to be confronted to provide fairer access to vaccines, a leading South African official has said.

The scramble over Covid vaccines should alert rich countries to the power of profit-driven companies that control production of crucial medicines, said Mustaqeem De Gama, South Africa’s delegate at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on intellectual property rights.

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Vaccine diplomacy: west falling behind in race for influence

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While the UK and US strive for herd immunity, Russia and China are leveraging their Covid jabs

“Today it is easier to get a nuclear weapon than to get a vaccine,” the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, declared in January. He was bragging. The Balkans country had just received its first shipment of almost 1m Covid-19 vaccine doses from Sinopharm, a state-owned Chinese pharmaceutical company.

Since then, Serbia has augmented its stockpile with tens of thousands of shots of Russia’s Sputnik V, signed an agreement to build a bottling plant for the Russian vaccine and now boasts the fastest vaccination rate in continental Europe.

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Macron proposes vaccine sharing plan as UK prepares to host G7

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French proposal comes after accusations wealthier nations have ordered more than they need

As Britain prepares to host the G7 club of wealthy nations on Friday under the chairmanship of Boris Johnson, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has proposed that 5% of its vaccines are sent to poorer countries, especially in Africa.

Johnson is expected to advance a parallel plan to cut the amount of time it takes to create vaccines, and may be unimpressed it has been upstaged by Macron.

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‘6.2cm-tall man’ offered priority Covid vaccine after NHS blunder

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Liam Thorp, whose real height is 6ft 2in, was recorded as having a BMI of 28,000

A 32-year-old man with no underlying health conditions was offered a Covid vaccine early because of a blunder at his GP surgery which recorded him as being 6.2cm tall, giving him an astonishing body mass index (BMI) of 28,000.

The Liverpool Echo’s political editor, Liam Thorp, said he was left “really confused” after he was offered the jab this week seemingly ahead of the government’s rollout plan, and shared the “frankly surreal” experience in a Twitter thread which quickly went viral.

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Brazil health workers accused of giving Covid vaccinations with empty syringes

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Police are looking into allegations of so-called ‘wind vaccinations’ amid speculation about possible motives

Police in Brazil are investigating allegations that healthcare workers are giving fake Covid-19 inoculations, amid reports of nurses injecting people with empty syringes.

Cases of what local media are calling “wind vaccination” have been reported in four states, adding to the woes of the country’s halting and uncoordinated immunisation programme.

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Mexico calls on rich countries not to hoard coronavirus vaccines

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  • Foreign minister says 100 countries have yet to give out vaccine
  • Three-quarters of all doses administered in just 10 countries

Mexico has made a plea at the UN security council for countries to stop hoarding vaccines against Covid-19 as poorer ones fall behind in the race to vaccinate their citizens.

Three-quarters of the first doses have been administered to citizens in only 10 countries that account for 60% of global gross domestic product (GDP), the Mexican foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, said, while in more than 100 countries no vaccines have been applied at all.

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Mass testing still a vital tool in Covid efforts despite UK vaccine success

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Analysis: Operation Moonshot rhetoric has been toned down but tests will help spot variants

When the government’s Operation Moonshot plans for mass testing of the population for Covid-19 were first revealed, the intention was to use that as the route out of perpetual cycles of lockdown.

It was described as a £100bn-plus endeavour, with resources likened to the Manhattan Project, the top-secret wartime endeavour led by the US to develop a nuclear bomb.

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Covid: almost 2m more people in England will be asked to shield

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New modelling identifies more higher-risk adults, of which 800,000 will be offered priority vaccination

Nearly 2 million more people in England will be asked to shield and 800,000 of those offered priority vaccination as a result of new modelling that has identified adults at higher risk from Covid-19 because of a combination of health factors and their circumstances, including ethnicity and low income.

Until now the NHS identified those most at risk on the basis usually of a single underlying health condition, such as specific cancers, together with age. But a more sophisticated modelling tool developed by the University of Oxford has shown that the shielding list should nearly double, adding 1.7 million people on the basis of multiple risk factors.

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Australia’s Department of Home Affairs made most requests for Covid misinformation takedowns

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Home affairs has made more than 500 requests for information to be removed from social media

The Department of Home Affairs has made more requests for misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic to be removed from Facebook than any other government department in Australia since March last year, Guardian Australia has learned.

Despite not having direct responsibility over social media companies like Facebook and Twitter, or being responsible for the government’s response to the pandemic, Peter Dutton’s mega agency has sent more than 500 takedown requests for misinformation and scams related to -19, a department spokesperson told Guardian Australia.

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Sterling reaches $1.39 in best performance for three years

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FTSE 100 posts biggest daily gain for over a month as investors buoyed up by vaccine and US economy hopes

The pound has hit its highest level against the dollar for almost three years as global markets were buoyed up by hopes for a faster economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

Sterling rose by 0.5% to hit a 33-month high against the dollar on Monday, trading above $1.39 on the global currency markets for the first time since 2018, while also rising to a nine-month high against the euro of almost €1.15.

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Israel battles Covid misinformation as vaccination drive slows

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Plan for incentives to increase takeup, while study shows two Pfizer doses give 94% protection

Israel is considering a carrot and stick approach to persuade people to get vaccinated, including granting inoculated people access to restaurants, hotels and concerts, while forcing some vaccine refusers to get uncomfortable Covid tests every two days.

“Will you be eligible to enter gyms and cultural events, or will you be left behind?” tweeted the health minister, Yuli Edelstein. “Go get vaccinated!”

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How the Covid pandemic could end – and what will make it happen faster | Devi Sridhar

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Pandemics are global by definition. Only travel restrictions and equal vaccine access for all countries will end this crisis

Most people have already adjusted their expectations to a spring of disruption – but most are quietly hoping that by the summer, and into the autumn, life in the UK will have returned more or less to normal. Are they right to be confident? What can we do to avoid slipping back into a cycle of lockdowns? In short: how does this pandemic end, and how can we end it faster?

Globally, the UK is in the strong position of having at least five effective and safe vaccines, but there are major challenges ahead. We already know about variants, such as those arising in Kent, Brazil and South Africa, which are proving challenging in terms of being more transmissible, and having potentially more severe health outcomes in the case of the UK variant.

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Pakistan to allow private firms to import coronavirus vaccines

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Vaccines also exempt from price caps in divisive move that health experts fear will deepen inequality

Pakistan will allow private companies to import coronavirus vaccines and has exempted the vaccines from price caps in a divisive move that health experts fear will create vast inequalities in access.

The country has been scrambling to secure vaccine supplies but so far only the Chinese-made Sinopharm treatment is being deployed. This month 500,000 doses were donated to Pakistan.

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Peru’s foreign minister resigns in scandal over early vaccination of officials

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Health minister had already quit after it emerged ministers received jabs before health workers

Peru’s foreign minister has resigned amid uproar over government officials being secretly vaccinated against coronavirus before the country recently received 1m doses for health workers facing a resurgence in the pandemic.

The president, Francisco Sagasti, confirmed that Elizabeth Astete had stepped down and told a local television channel that Peruvians should feel “outraged and angry about this situation that jeopardises the enormous effort of many Peruvians working on the frontline against Covid”.

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Australia politics live: Daniel Andrews gives press conference update on Victoria cases; jobseeker in spotlight as parliament returns

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Pressure mounts for Coalition to announce a permanent increase to unemployment payment; Australia closes quarantine-free border to New Zealand after coronavirus cases confirmed as UK variant. Follow all the latest news and updates, live

• Victoria Covid hotspots

NSW has recorded no new locally acquired cases - or any cases in hotel quarantine.

So another zero day for NSW

Daniel Andrews:

Again, the types of cases, this UK strain, the fact that despite the amazing efforts of all of our contact traces and testers and lab workers and the work of so many genuine hard-working Victorians, we had a situation where at the same time as we are becoming aware of the primary case, they have already infected their close contacts, that is not something we’ve seen before.

The speed at which this has moved saw our public health team make the very difficult decisions based on the best of science and the best understanding you can possibly have on any outbreak, that this was a difficult but proportionate and necessary thing to do.

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Ministers flatly reject Tory demands to end Covid controls by May

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Backbenchers’ calls dismissed but clamour for a more fixed schedule seems set to increase

Downing Street is pushing back against pressure from Conservative MPs to set a swift timetable to end the lockdown in England after meeting its first major vaccination target, saying any hastiness in reopening could risk undoing the progress made in combating the coronavirus pandemic.

In a sign of the likely battle ahead in the coming weeks, ministers and officials flatly ruled out a demand from Tory backbenchers for all Covid restrictions to be over by the start of May, saying any plan needed to be both more cautious and decided step by step.

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What are the pros and cons of Covid vaccine passports?

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The UK government is reconsidering the idea of certificates of vaccination to help reopen travel and business

Desperate to return to pre-pandemic normality, many countries where vaccination campaigns for Covid-19 are in full swing are considering endorsing “vaccine passports” to reignite international travel and reopen economies.

A week ago, the UK government ruled out plans for such passports – with vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi calling them “discriminatory” – but on Sunday, the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the documents were “under consideration”. Labour politicians have advocated their introduction, with the former prime minister Tony Blair making the case for domestic vaccine passports in this week’s Mail on Sunday. So what are the pros and cons of such “immunity certificates”?

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