Portugal delays Lisbon lockdown easing – as it happened | World news

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The chief executive of the main supplier of Covid-19 vaccines to Brazil, complained last month to Brazilian diplomats in Beijing that anti-China comments were not helping with delayed shipments, sources told Reuters.

Sinovac CEO Yin Weidong suggested an official retraction would make for a more “fluid” relationship between China and Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, the sources said.

Bolsonaro, who complained during his 2018 campaign about a string of Chinese acquisitions in Brazil, said in a speech on May 5 that the coronavirus pandemic could be “chemical warfare” waged by the fastest-growing nation, without naming China.

Two weeks later, at a meeting at Sinovac headquarters to discuss vaccine supplies, Weidong said a change of attitude in Brasilia would be “convenient” for a more “fluid and positive” relations with the Chinese government, according to a diplomatic cable sent to Brasilia and seen by newspaper O Globo.

The two sources confirmed to Reuters the content of the telegram reported by O Globo on Wednesday.

The US had administered 304,753,476 doses of Covid-19 vaccines and distributed 372,495,525 doses in the country as of Wednesday morning, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

The figures were up from the 303,923,667 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by June 8, out of 372,100,285 doses delivered.

The agency said 172,054,276 people had received at least one dose, while 140,980,110 people were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday.

Brazil has had 85,748 new cases of coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours and 2,723 deaths, the country’s health ministry said.

The South American country has now registered 17,122,877 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 479,515, Reuters reports.

Here are the latest Covid developments in Australia:

Some of the UK’s biggest care home operators have told the Guardian they repeatedly warned Matt Hancock’s department about the risk of not testing people discharged from hospitals into care homes in March 2020.

Their claims are likely to increase pressure on the health secretary when he appears before MPs on Thursday to defend his handling of the Covid pandemic to a parliamentary inquiry.

Care England, which represents the largest private chains where thousands of people died in the first months of the virus, told the Guardian it raised “the lack of testing in hospitals and in the care sector” several times in correspondence with the Department of Health and Social Care as well as NHS England in late March 2020.

The Care Provider Alliance also called on the government to prioritise testing for care residents to stop the spread of the virus, warning on 26 March 2020 that without it “there is no way of knowing whether they are going to infect others”.

The US is in talks with drugmaker Moderna Inc to buy more Covid-19 vaccine doses for global supply, CNBC reported on Wednesday citing a source.

Former UK prime minister Gordon Brown stepped up pressure on the G7 to act on the global supply of vaccines.

Boris Johnson has urged the G7 to vaccinate the world by the end of 2022 and US President Joe Biden appears set to announce the US will buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine to share through the Covax alliance.

Brown said an anticipated donation of a billion extra doses by the G7 would only be a “fraction of what’s needed”.

He told ITV’s Peston programme that Mr Johnson has “got to back up the donation of vaccines and the sharing of doses with a burden-sharing plan”.

Brown added: “He’s got a promise at the moment, but he hasn’t got a plan.”

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.
Reuters reports:

The plan, which would have allowed areas with low infection rates to open nightclubs until 3 a.m., drew the ire of several regions and a legal challenge from Madrid’s conservative leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso.

After a week of tension, health chiefs from Spain’s 17 regions unanimously approved a revised version of the document on Wednesday in which the rules are reduced to non-binding guidelines, Health Minister Carolina Darias told reporters. “The measures for the hospitality sector are no longer included in the document, and those for nightlife…are now recommendations,” she said at a news conference. “It doesn’t mean that (clubs) will open everywhere, but rather that each region, depending on its epidemiological situation, will decide how to open,” she added.

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.

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.
Scientists and U.S. and European drug regulators have been searching for an explanation for what is causing rare but potentially deadly clots accompanied by low blood platelet counts, which have led some countries to halt or limit use of the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

The Czech health ministry said it made the decision after responding to recommendations from the country’s drug regulator SUKL and the Czech Vaccination Society.

US, EU and other regulators have said the benefits of receiving the AstraZeneca or J&J shots outweigh any risks.

The International Olympic Committee has pledged to source as many doctors and nurses as needed from around the globe to ensure the Tokyo Olympics is safe – and to help Japan fight a fourth wave of Covid infections.

The IOC’s offer comes amid mounting concern in Japan that having 70,000 athletes, officials, journalists and support staff arriving into the country could act as super-spreaders for new variants and put huge pressure on medical services.

Mastercard Inc and drinks company Ambev, major sponsors of South American football, have backed away from the Copa America as players criticised organisers for moving the tournament to Brazil despite one of the world’s worst Covid-19 outbreaks.
Last week, the South American Football Confederation unexpectedly relocated the tournament, which kicks off on Sunday, after co-hosts Colombia were dropped because of civil unrest and Argentina withdrew after a surge in coronavirus infections. More than 475,000 Brazilians have died from coronavirus, Reuters reports. The Brazil football team cited “humanitarian” concerns in a statement criticising the organization of the Copa America on Wednesday, but they committed to participating in the tournament after rumors of a potential boycott. Mastercard Inc said it decided not to “activate” its sponsorship of Copa America in Brazil after a thorough analysis, meaning it will temporarily remove its branding from the event it has sponsored since 1992. Ambev SA, a unit of brewer AB InBev sponsoring both the tournament and the Brazilian national team, said “its brands will not be present at the Copa America.”

In South Africa just 0.8% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to a worldwide tracker kept by Johns Hopkins University.
Associated Press reports:

And hundreds of thousands of the country’s health workers, many of whom come face-to-face with the virus every day, are still waiting for their shots.

In Nigeria only 0.1% are fully protected. Kenya is even lower. Uganda has recalled doses from rural areas because it does not have nearly enough to fight outbreaks in big cities. Chad did not administer its first vaccine shots until this past weekend. And there are at least five other countries in Africa where not one dose has been put into an arm, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It is extremely concerning and at times frustrating,” said Africa CDC director Dr. John Nkengasong, a Cameroonian virologist said. “I’d like to believe that the G-7 countries, most of them having kept excess doses of vaccines, want to be on the right side of history,” he added. “Distribute those vaccines. We need to actually see these vaccines, not just … promises and goodwill.”