G7: leaders to sign landmark global health declaration to stop future pandemics – live updates | World news

The head of the World Trade Organization said on Saturday she hoped that post-Brexit tensions between Britain and the European Union would not escalate into a trade war.

“I would really, really hope that a UK-EU trade war will not take place,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in response to a question when speaking to reporters covering a Group of Seven leaders’ summit in southwestern England.

“With all the opportunities there are too for dialogue, I would be a little surprised if we ended up with a UK-EU trade war,” she said. “It’s too costly for both sides. This is not what the world needs right now.”

Boris Johnson has said the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus is a matter of “serious, serious concern” as he prepares to put lockdown lifting on hold.

The prime minister is expected to announce a delay of up to four weeks in the final easing of restrictions in England which had been due to take place on June 21 under the government’s road map.

Speaking during the G7 summit in Cornwall, he insisted that no decisions had been taken ahead of a formal announcement on Monday.

However he made clear that there had been a deterioration in the situation, with a surge in cases of the Delta variant – first detected in India – since the start of the month.

“It’s clear that the Indian variant is more transmissible and it’s also true that the cases are going up, and that the levels of hospitalisation are going up,” he told Sky News.

“Now, we don’t know exactly to what extent that is going to feed through into extra mortality, but clearly it’s a matter of serious, serious concern.”

Asked if he was less optimistic now than he was at the end of May, he said: “Yes, that’s certainly fair.

“What we want to do is make sure that the road map is irreversible, but you can’t have an irreversible road map unless you’re prepared to be cautious.

“Some of the data is still open to question, but we’ll be making an announcement on Monday.”

Sky’s political editor, Beth Rigby, asked Boris Johnson about comments he once made saying there would be a border in the Irish Sea “over my dead body”, and he said the EU understand “the strength of our feeling on this”.

He added: “I think [the Northern Ireland] protocol can work if it’s sensibly applied but at the moment it’s not just a question of chilled meats or sausages, there are all kinds of impediments being constructed, And we need to sort it out. I think we can sort it out.”

Rigby also asked Johnson about the Delta variant of coronavirus delaying lockdown, over which the government has said it will make a decision on Monday.

Johnson said: “It’s clear the Indian variant is more transmissible and it’s also true the cases are going up and that the levels of hospitalisation are going up.

“Now we don’t know to what extent that exactly is going to feed through into extra mortality but, clearly it’s a matter of serious, serious concern,” he added.

He said that the country would not go back to a full lockdown and that “the whole point of having an irreversible roadmap is just that – to make it irreversible.”

“To do that, as I’ve said repeatedly, you have to be cautious and where it’s necessary to be cautious we will do so.”

Rising Covid case numbers and hospitalisations are a matter of “serious, serious concern”, Boris Johnson said on Saturday, adding he was less optimistic about reopening the country than he was last month.

“It’s clear that the Indian variant is more transmissible and it’s also true that the cases are going up, and that the levels of hospitalisation are going up,” the prime minister told Sky News.

“Now, we don’t know exactly to what extent that is going to feed through into extra mortality, but clearly it’s a matter of serious, serious concern.”

Johnson is expected to set out on Monday whether a planned lifting of coronavirus restrictions in England can go ahead on 21 June, or whether rising cases will force it to be delayed.

Environmental protest groups have gathered in Cornwall as the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, hosts leaders from the US, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Canada at the G7 Summit in Carbis Bay.

They are calling for stronger action to tackle the climate crisis.

The White House says Joe Biden will hold a solo news conference after meeting the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The two delegations will have a working session and a smaller session as part of their meeting. But the White House says it is still finalising the format of the meeting.

The White House says a news conference with only Biden is the appropriate format to communicate the topics discussed, areas of agreement, and sources of significant concern.

The Carbis Bay declaration will set out the steps G7 countries will take to prevent a future pandemic. These include slashing the time taken to develop and license vaccines, treatments and diagnostics for any future disease to fewer than 100 days, a commitment to reinforce global surveillance networks and genomic sequencing capacity and support for reforming and strengthening the World Health Organization.

To stop animal-borne diseases before they put people at risk, the UK will establish a UK animal vaccine manufacturing and innovation centre at the Pirbright Institute in Surrey.

The centre will draw on Pirbright’s world-leading expertise to accelerate the delivery of vaccines for livestock diseases. These diseases pose a risk to people if they mutate to become transmissible to humans and can devastate agriculture in the UK and internationally. The UK has contributed £10m of funding for the centre.

The UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, said: “In the last year the world has developed several effective coronavirus vaccines, licensed and manufactured them at pace and is now getting them into the arms of the people who need them.

“But to truly defeat coronavirus and recover we need to prevent a pandemic like this from ever happening again. That means learning lessons from the last 18 months and doing it differently next time around.

The Carbis Bay declaration will be agreed upon by leaders today and published tomorrow alongside the G7 Summit Communique.

Dr Tedros Adhanom, the director-general of the World Health Organization, said: “We welcome the Carbis Bay health declaration, particularly as the world begins to recover and rebuild from the Covid-19 pandemic. Together we need to build on the significant scientific and collaborative response to the Covid-19 pandemic and find common solutions to address many of the gaps identified.”