Germany wants to allow as much holidaying as it responsibly can this summer, foreign minister Heiko Maas has said, according to Reuters.
Maas told a news conference with Turkey’s foreign minister in Berlin:
I believe that people need a perspective. We want as much holiday as is responsible in the summer.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass attends EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium on March 22, 2021. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
On Thursday, Indiawelcomed US president Joe Biden’s support for a proposal to waive intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines to help make them available to more people more quickly, Reuters reports.
India and South Africa have led a proposal at the World Trade Organization to waive protections for some patents and technology and boost vaccine production in developing countries.
“We are appreciative of US support,” foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said.
You can read a useful explainer on patent waiving here:
France will lower the age of those eligible for Covid-19 vaccines to all French people aged 50 and over from next Monday onwards, five days ahead of an initial timetable, president Emmanuel Macron has said.
Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog until the evening (UK time). As always, feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
“This is a global health crisis,” Katherine Tai, the US trade representative, said in a written statement. “The extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus hailed the United States’ support for a global waiver on patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines, describing it as a “historic decision”
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said today: “The EU is also ready to discuss any proposals that addresses the crisis in an effective and pragmatic manner. That’s why we are ready to discuss how the US proposal for a waiver on intellectual property protections for Covid-19 vaccines could help achieve that objective.”
The GAVI vaccine alliance welcomed Biden’s support, and urged Washington to help manufacturers to also transfer know-how to boost global production urgently. “We recognise also the significance of the administration’s commitment to work towards increasing raw material production, which will have an immediate impact on alleviating current global supply constraints.”
New figures on Thursday showed that India confirmed national record new deaths, with 3,980 people lost in 24 hours. The number of cases recorded was also a record for the country, at 412,262.
Eleven Covid-19 patients died as the pressure in the oxygen line dropped suddenly in a government medical college hospital in Chengalpet town in southern India.
The chair of the UK’s National Long Covid Taskforce, Dr Kiren Collison, has told Sky News that NHS England clinics for people suffering from the condition may be needed longer than first thought, into next year.
Travel firm Tui has announced that customers travelling from the UK to green list destinations will be able to purchase coronavirus test packages starting from £20, which they say would be a significant reduction on existing prices.
Germany is planning to make the AstraZeneca vaccine available to all adultsirrespective of age and pre-existing health conditions, in an attempt to help doctors shift leftover doses.
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said on Thursday that the number of new Covid-19 cases among younger people are on the rise and called on residents to further curtail their movements. The region is expected to apply for extended emergency powers.
New Zealand will pause quarantine-free travel from New South Wales from midnight Thursday (NZST), after two community Covid cases were detected in Sydney. Covid response minister Chris Hipkins told reporters the suspension would initially last 48 hours.
Fiji has closed its second largest hospital amid fears that a patient who died of Covid-19 may have infected multiple staff members.
The vast majority of Australia’s 38-strong Indian Premier League contingent has departed for the Maldives, beginning their long and indirect journey home from the aborted Twenty20 tournament.
Meanwhile Australian prime minister Scott Morrison’s Facebook page is spending $2,000 Australian dollars on ads targeting the Indian community in Australia to explain the controversial travel ban which some have deemed racist.
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has ordered police to arrest anyone not wearing a mask properly, including if the have it below the nose.
That’s it from me, Martin Belam, this week. I will see you on Monday. Kevin Rawlinson has our UK politics and election live blog, and Yohannes Lowe will be here shortly to carry on with the latest global coronavirus news including the top Covid lines from the UK. And if you fancy a complete change of pace you can do our new weekly quiz.
The NHS is revising its process for booking Covid vaccinations after the discovery of a “seriously shocking failure” that leaked medical data from the site.
The website lets users make appointments using their NHS number or, if they do not have it to hand, some basic identity information. But in the process, users’ vaccination status is disclosed, allowing anyone who possesses basic personal details of a friend, colleague or stranger to find out what should be confidential medical information.
Employers would therefore, in theory, be able to trivially find out which of their staff had been vaccinated, for instance, while others may feel under pressure not to get the vaccine for fear of criticism from anti-vaccination friends or colleagues.
The problem comes because of the different responses the vaccination website gives to users based on their vaccination status. For users who haven’t had any jabs, entering personal details takes them straight through to a standard screening page, while for users who have had their first shot and booked their second, they are presented with a screen asking for their booking reference to continue.
But for those people who have received both vaccinations, simply entering the basic biographical information takes them straight to a page which says “you have had both of your appointments”. Worst of all, for those users who have had only one jab through a GP, and haven’t booked a second, the screen lets them book their follow-up then and there, without any further verification.
“This is a seriously shocking failure to protect patients’ medical confidentiality at a time when it could not be more important,” said Silkie Carlo, the director of privacy group Big Brother Watch.
Travel firm Tui has announced that customers travelling from the UK to green list destinations will be able to purchase coronavirus test packages starting from £20, which they say would be a significant reduction on existing prices.
Some commentators had speculated that testing requirements could add hundreds of pounds to a family holiday.
PA report that the basic Tui package will include a lateral flow test for pre-departure to the UK, and a PCR test to be taken post-arrival in the UK.
Andrew Flintham, the travel firm’s managing director for the UK and Ireland, said: “We have always believed that cost-effective testing solutions, as well as maximum flexibility, will make travel a possibility this summer and beyond.
“Our research has shown that customers are looking forward to their much-needed holiday overseas, but affordable and easy testing solutions was imperative to make this a reality. The four new exclusive testing packages have been developed with our customers in mind; they’re offered at greatly reduced prices, include certification to travel and will be a simple process from start to finish.”
In a sentence I never expected to write, Pope Francis, Dr. Anthony Fauci, soprano Renee Fleming, Chelsea Clinton, Cindy Crawford, the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry are all appearing at the same Vatican event about health which starts today.
Nicole Winfield reports for Associated Press that the conference, which begins Thursday and ends Saturday with a virtual audience with the pope, was planned well before the pandemic erupted, and is being held after being postponed last year.
Fauci, who is leading the US pandemic response, told the online conference in recorded remarks that the pandemic had confirmed to him that faith and science are constantly evolving — and that scientists in particular must humbly admit they don’t have all the answers all the time.
One answer Fauci said he did have was that the key to overcoming current vaccine hesitancy is pairing the right medical message with the right messenger. “You have someone who’s a deeply religious person who will listen to their clergy. That’s different than me with a suit going into an area telling people to do something,” he said.
He was referring to the religiously inspired resistance to taking Covid-19 vaccines that were indirectly developed using lines of cells derived from aborted fetuses. The Vatican has declared that all Covid-19 vaccines are not only morally licit, but that people have a moral responsibility to get the jabs to protect others.
To back his point on the potency of messages from spiritual leaders, yesterday we were reporting that Iraq’s vaccine rollout had been faltering, but that images of a populist Shiite cleric’s public endorsement of vaccinations have spurred on his supporters to get the jab.
At the Vatican event Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel will be speaking about the mRNA technology behind Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, while his counterpart at Pfizer, Albert Bourla, is heading up a discussion on preparedness for future global health crises.
Sudden US backing for a global waiver on patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines offers hope to poor nations struggling for doses – but, perhaps unsurprisingly, the big pharma industry thinks the notion misguided.
Agrence France-Presse have produced this summing up of the arguments. Some countries see the temporary intellectual property (IP) rights waiver as a shortcut to ending the coronavirus pandemic. But the pharmaceutical industry claims an IP waiver will not help produce a single dose more this year.
The original plan proposed a temporary exemption from certain IP obligations so that any country can produce vaccines without worrying about patents.
The waiver would also cover “industrial designs, copyright and protection of undisclosed information”, and would last “until widespread vaccination is in place globally, and the majority of the world’s population has developed immunity”.
More than 80 countries support the proposal, including Argentina, Bangladesh, the DR Congo, Kenya, Nigeria and Venezuela. Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco and Pakistan are among a host of countries that have indicated they have production capacity available if the patents are waived.
A number of NGOs including the medical charity Doctors Without Borders back the waiver, saying it would facilitate timely access to affordable medical products for all countries in need.
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations is, naturally, strongly against the proposal. “A waiver is the simple but the wrong answer to what is a complex problem,” the IFPMA big pharma lobby group said, branding the US decision to support the plan “disappointing”.
“Waiving patents of Covid-19 vaccines will not increase production nor provide practical solutions.”
The IFPMA claim the real challenge in scaling up production is eliminating trade barriers, and addressing the supply chain bottlenecks and scarcity of raw materials – and argues introducing new manufacturers will not help. Larger firms also suggest that vaccine confidence could be undermined by a free-for-all on production.
There will now undoubtedly be months of negotiations – and acres of op-eds and pressure from both sides – before a consensus can be found at the World Trade Organization in Geneva.
Earlier today European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said that the trading bloc was ready to discuss the proposal.
The idea has the backing of World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who hailed the US support as a “monumental moment” in the pandemic fight.
“Ultimately, the solution to the vaccine crisis is for the countries and companies that control the global supply to share… technology, know-how and to waive intellectual property rights,” he said yesterday.
Germany is planning to make the AstraZeneca vaccine available to all adults in Germany irrespective of age and pre-existing health conditions, in an attempt to help doctors shift leftover doses.
Health minister Jens Spahn announced on Wednesday night he would push to scrap the priority order for the British-Swedish company’s vaccine at a meeting with German state leaders on Thursday.
Spahn also said he would seek to reduce the interval between the first and the second dose of the Oxford-developed vaccine from 12 to four weeks.
Some German states, including Berlin, Bavaria and Saxony, have already scrapped prioritisation rules around the AstraZeneca vaccine. In the German capital, some GPs even offer walk-in jabs for patients who aren’t registered with their clinic.
Several reported cases of a rare blood-clotting disorder in people who had received the vaccine led Germany in March to limit the use of AstraZeneca to people aged 60 or older, and doctors report continued scepticism around the product.
Health minister Spahn on Wednesday appealed to the over 60s to take the jab if it was offered to them, and emphasised that the risk of side effects even among younger people was “very, very low”.
PA are highlighting some new statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) about vaccine take-up in the UK by ethnicity.
They report that around one in three people in England aged 50 and over identifying as black Caribbean are unlikely to have received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine.
Vaccination rates for this ethnic group up to 12 April are estimated to be 66.8%, the lowest among all ethnic minority groups, according to the ONS
For people aged 50 and over identifying as black African the estimated rate is 71.2%, with rates of 78.4% and 86.9% for people from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds respectively.
The estimated rate for people identifying as white British is 93.7%.
