Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage with me, Helen Sullivan.
The Biden administration plans to donate 500 million Pfizer coronavirus vaccine doses to nearly 100 countries over the next two years, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
And in the UK, the Health Secretary is expected to face further questions about accusations made by Dominic Cummings as he appears in front of a select committee on Thursday. Matt Hancock was accused by the Prime Minister’s former chief aide of lying to Boris Johnson over coronavirus plans and being “disastrously incompetent”.
Among the explosive claims from Mr Cummings last month was that Mr Johnson was furious to discover that untested hospital patients had been discharged to care homes, alleging that Mr Hancock had told them both that people being discharged would be tested.
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- French prime minister Jean Castex is self-isolating for seven days after his wife Sandra tested positive for Covid-19, the prime minister’s office said. The prime minister, who had received his first shot of the AstraZeneca vaccine on March 19, tested negative on Wednesday evening. However as a contact of a person who tested positive, he is self-isolating for seven days, his office said.
- Spain’s health ministry has scrapped a nationwide plan to gradually reopen nightlife just a week after introducing it, following widespread complaints from regional authorities who dismissed it as either too strict or too loose.
- The Czech health ministry has recommended only people over 60 should receive Covid-19 vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson due to a potential risk of blood clots, Reuters reports.
- Canada is prepared to relax quarantine protocols for fully vaccinated citizens returning home starting in early July, Reuters reports.
- Intensive care beds for Covid patients in Malaysia have reached full capacity, according to the country’s health director general, who said the country’s pandemic remained at a critical level. The country’s king started a series of meetings with leaders of political parties amid public discontent over the government’s handling of the pandemic.
- The World Trade Organization’s members have agreed to talks on boosting global vaccine supplies, though there is still opposition to the idea of waiving patents, in particular from the EU which will propose its own plan.
- There were 1.2 million new cases in the Americas over the past week, according to the Pan American Health Organization. It warned that Covid-19 could remain a problem for the region for years unless the current spread is slowed.
- The UK is facing a “substantial third wave” according to new data presented to the government, Prof Neil Ferguson told reporters. He said that the scale of the problem would depend on how effective vaccines are against the Delta variant, originally found in India. Meanwhile according to new data, 8 in 10 adults in the UK are likely to have Covid-19 antibodies through either vaccination or previous infection.
- NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson has told Times Radio this morning that vaccines appear to have “broken” the link between infections, hospital admission and deaths in the UK.
- A judge has ruled that the UK government acted unlawfully when it awarded a contract for polling the public about Covid messaging without a tender last March. The company was owned by friends of Dominic Cummings, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser.
- Confidence in the EU’s ability to handle crises has taken a hit from Covid-19, a major survey shows, but dissatisfaction with national political systems is even higher and most people still support EU membership and want a stronger, more cooperative bloc.
- In the US, a pharmacist has been jailed for three years after pleading guilty to trying to spoil hundreds of doses of the Moderna vaccine because he was skeptical about them.
