Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
States and territories have been left scrambling to respond to government advice recommending against vaccinating anyone under 50 with the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, leaving tens of thousands of people in the lurch.
On Friday, New South Wales halted its AstraZeneca rollout entirely for several hours while patient consent forms with the latest information about the rare risk of severe clotting associated with the vaccine were added. The state’s rollout for people aged 50 and over has since resumed.
The number of people suffering with long Covid should be published routinely, as happens with those infected with or hospitalised with coronavirus, MPs and peers are urging Boris Johnson.
The cross-party group of parliamentarians want the prime minister to ensure that the “untold human suffering” that the condition involves helps shape future government policy towards the pandemic.
Germany’s health minister has said he wants to hold talks with Moscow about obtaining supplies of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, in an effort to boost the country’s inoculation campaign.
Jens Spahn said Germany would have no hesitation in acting independently of the European Union, indicating his frustration over the bloc’s refusal to engage with the Russian jab’s manufacturers, but he stressed that the vaccine would only be used if it was approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
British ministers and officials did not deny that more than 700,000 shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine were secretly dispatched from the UK to Australia a few weeks ago as the EU blocked the drug’s export.
The P1 variant is causing devastation in Brazil, where an uncontrolled Covid pandemic is raging. P1, behind the terrible scenes of hospital overload in Manaus with patients’ relatives pleading for oxygen cylinders, is now the dominant form of coronavirus in many of Brazil’s cities and partly responsible for the high death toll. Other Latin American countries have closed their borders and restricted travel to and from Brazil but P1 is now in at least 15 countries in the Americas, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
The sister of a man who died from a rare blood clot on the brain after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine has urged the public to “keep saving lives” by continuing to receive the jab.
Neil Astles, a 59-year-old solicitor at Warrington council, was given his first dose on 17 March but died in hospital on Easter Sunday after suffering from 10 days of worsening headaches and loss of vision.
Australian government yields to expert advice that Pfizer should now be the preferred coronavirus vaccine for adults under the age of 50
Australia’s vaccine rollout has suffered a major shock, with an advisory slapped on the AstraZeneca vaccine warning people under 50 it may cause extremely rare but potentially deadly blood clots.
On Thursday evening, the Australian government announced it had accepted expert advice that Pfizer should now be the preferred vaccine for under 50s, who will be warned AstraZeneca should only be taken if it is clear the benefits outweigh the risks.
While younger generations remain suspicious, growing numbers of senior citizens are taking up the jab
They may be old, frail, and vulnerable but they are the foot soldiers at the front of Zimbabwe’s Covid vaccination drive. Amid widespread scepticism among the younger population, it is elderly people who are coming out to lead by example.
The queues at the vaccination centres in the capital, Harare, are dominated by older people. At Wilkins Hospital, Felda Mupemhi, 85, grasps her walking stick as she trudges toward a white tent, where nurses are administering the Sinopharm vaccine.
Gladys Berejiklian says a NSW Covid immunisation centre will be capable of administering 30,000 doses a week; EU denies blocking further shipments of AstraZeneca earmarked for Australia. Follow the latest updates, live
Australia needs to manage the increasingly complex relationship with China, even as the government seeks areas to diversify its export markets, according to a new report out this afternoon.
The Asia Taskforce – which includes the Business Council of Australia and Asia Society Australia – calls for a target of boosting Australia’s exports to 35% of GDP by 2030 (up from 29% in 2019).
Popular support for the open economy cannot be taken for granted. Retreating to old familiar relationships in western markets, falling behind in Asia literacy and failing to build connections with new Asian business partners should not be seen as a serious default choice when consumption in Asia will likely fuel future global growth.
The Greens are once again calling for an independent rapid review into the vaccine rollout to identify any issues and restore public confidence.
Senator Rachel Siewert, Greens spokesperson for health, said in a statement:
With targets missed, persistent problems with vaccine supply, and troubles getting the available vaccines to where they’re needed, the rollout of these vital jabs hardly inspires confidence...
We shouldn’t let this devolve into a game of finger pointing and blaming shifting between the federal and state governments. This pointless squabble doesn’t inspire confidence in the rollout, and can only serve to add further delays to the process.
Australia has accused the EU of ‘semantics’ after European Commission said just one shipment of 250,000 AstraZeneca doses has been formally blocked, but Coalition says AZ has not been able to secure an export licence from Europe
Scott Morrison denies his government has presented the public with overly rosy assessments about the state of its Covid-19 vaccine rollout, as he steps up calls for the European Union to allow 3.1m outstanding AstraZeneca doses to be shipped to Australia.
While declaring that vaccine supply issues were a matter of “straightforward maths”, the prime minister also attempted to calm a growing diplomatic dispute between Australia and the EU, insisting he had not made any criticism of Brussels over its handling of the matter.
Patients in Wales will from Wednesday become the first in the UK to receive the Moderna vaccine as part of a mass vaccination programme, with the first doses in Scotland set to come later this week.
The initial jabs would be given at the West Wales general hospital in Carmarthen, the Welsh government said.
Vaccines have side-effects, as do all medicines. Most often, jabs cause sore arms, a headache or a bit of nausea – none of which would be very significant when weighed against the toll of a serious virus such as Covid-19.
But sometimes the risk-benefit calculation may look less simple, as in the case of Oxford/AstraZeneca’s Covid jab and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST), the blood clots in the brain that have led to fatalities in the UK and Europe.
As mass vaccination programmes take hold around the world, some countries have begun to get on top of the virus while others have continued to struggle. Two countries that have streaked ahead with immunisations are Israel and Chile, but as Israel edges back to a new normal, Chile has been plunged back into lockdown. Can the UK and other countries repeat Israel’s success and avoid the setbacks of Chile?
Europe’s drug regulator has denied it has already established a causal connection between the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and a rare blood clotting syndrome, after a senior official from the agency said there was a link.
In a statement to Agence France-Presse, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Tuesday it had “not yet reached a conclusion and the review is currently ongoing”, adding that it expected to announce its findings on Wednesday or Thursday.
One of the most significant political controversies of the coronavirus period is likely to be over the idea of Covid “passports” – app-based, biometric certificates that would allow people entry to potentially crowded spaces. While they are sometimes referred to as “vaccine passports”, these would not just show vaccination status. Other ways people could prove they were safe to mingle would be a sufficiently recent test showing significant Covid antibodies, or a very recent negative test for the virus.
These are distinct from the idea of a proof of vaccination to be allowed to enter overseas countries, which is less contentious.
Prime minister refuses to say how many doses of AstraZeneca vaccine CSL is producing in Melbourne each week
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has rejected claims Australia’s vaccine rollout has been held up by the batch testing of 2.5m domestically made doses and instead blamed international supply issues.
At a press conference on Tuesday after New Zealand announced a trans-Tasman travel bubble, Morrison said Australia had not received 3.1m AstraZeneca doses from overseas. He said that was to blame for the massive discrepancy between the 855,000 vaccinations administered so far and the missed target of 4m doses by the end of March.
New variants of concern have changed the game, spreading worldwide and threatening to derail pandemic control efforts
At the end of 2020, there was a strong hope that high levels of vaccination would see humanity finally gain the upper hand over Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. In an ideal scenario, the virus would then be contained at very low levels without further societal disruption or significant numbers of deaths.
But since then, new “variants of concern” have emerged and spread worldwide, putting current pandemic control efforts, including vaccination, at risk of being derailed.
England is gearing up for the next stage of coronavirus restrictions being eased from 12 April. So far, step 1 of the proposed roadmap has been completed: on 8 March, pupils and college students returned to the classroom, and care home residents were allowed to receive one regular, named visitor; then on 29 March, outdoor gatherings of up two six people, or two households, were allowed, outdoor sports continued, and the official “stay at home” advice came to an end.
There is a minimum of five weeks between each stage, with four weeks to collect and assess data and then a week for people and businesses to prepare for the next step.
One year ago, lockdown had just come in. A creeping sense of dread was spreading across the hospital. We were focused on the first wave of admissions, the peak of which for us occurred in early April. We were desperately learning how to keep people from dying due to this new disease. The longer-term consequences were the last thing on our minds.
Now, a year on, there is a superficial sense of normality returning. Our respiratory support unit, for so long hidden behind closed doors with “STOP: CORONAVIRUS” signs and staffed by hooded figures in head-to-toe PPE, has turned back into the bright, airy ward it used to be. Nurses, doctors, porters are back in their usual clothes instead of uniform scrubs; conversation has replaced the incessant hiss of Cpap machines. Our ITU is shrinking back to its normal size. It is easy to forget how things were even a couple of months ago.