Country’s death toll passes 1,000 mark for first time since the start of the pandemic; record number of Covid jabs administered by healthcare workers

• New Zealand’s weird and wonderful vaccine rollout
• Long Covid: what are you entitled to if you can’t work in the UK?
• See all our coronavirus coverage

US health officials are setting the stage for a national Covid-19 vaccination campaign for younger children, inviting state officials to order doses before the shots are authorised.

Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is currently being given to people as young as 12 in the US. Over the next three weeks, federal officials plan to discuss making smaller-dose versions available to the nation’s 28 million children between the ages of five and 11.

At least two dozen lawsuits have been filed around the US, many in recent weeks, by people seeking to force hospitals to give their COVID-stricken loved ones ivermectin, a drug for parasites that has been promoted by conservative commentators as a treatment despite a lack of conclusive evidence that it helps people with the virus.

Interest in the drug started rising toward the end of last year and the beginning of this one, when studies — some later withdrawn, in other countries — seemed to suggest ivermectin had some potential and it became a hot topic of conversation among conservatives on social media.