Health News at Your Fingertips

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Germany increased by 8,007 to 2,402,818, data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases showed on Wednesday.

The reported death toll rose by 422 to 68,740, the tally showed.

Singapore is discussing the mutual recognition of vaccine certificates with other countries, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said, calling it a necessary step towards resuming global travel, Reuters reports.

Singapore, a regional travel and tourism hub, has been rolling out its Covid-19 vaccination programme over the last two months. It has approved shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

Singapore’s economy, which recorded its worst recession in 2020 due to the pandemic, is staging an uneven recovery this year and a return of more business and tourism travel would be a boost for the city state.

Greece, Spain and Britain are among other nations looking into the idea of vaccine certificates or so-called vaccine passports in a bid to revive economies and travel.

South Korea shipped its first doses of a coronavirus vaccine on Wednesday, transferring AstraZeneca vaccines from a production facility in the country to a warehouse outside the capital of Seoul in preparation for this week’s inoculation drive, Reuters reports.

Healthcare workers are scheduled to receive the first batch of AstraZeneca PLC’s vaccine from Friday, as South Korea looks to protect 10 million high-risk people by July, on its way to reaching herd immunity by November.

AstraZeneca shots enough for about 750,000 people will be distributed from a production facility of SK Chemicals Co Ltd unit SK bioscience to immunisation centres across the country starting on Wednesday.

“We start the first historic vaccination on Friday with the vaccines rolled out today,” Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun told a government meeting.

“This is the first step that will lead us to a long-waited return to normal.”

Hong Kong permanent residents are to receive HK$5,000 (US$640) in coupons in an effort to stimulate the economy, the South China Morning Post reports:

Podcast: The science behind England’s Covid exit plan

Nicola Davis runs through the science behind the government’s decision to begin lifting lockdown restrictions, a four-stage plan that starts with the reopening of schools and could see the return of nightclubs on 21 June:

The US House of Representatives will vote on Friday on legislation to provide $1.9 trillion in new coronavirus relief, Representative Steny Hoyer, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, said.

“The American people strongly support this bill, and we are moving swiftly to see it enacted into law,” Hoyer said on Twitter on Tuesday.

Reuters: The House Budget Committee approved the measure on Monday. Passing more relief to ease the economic effects of the pandemic is a top priority of Democratic President Joe Biden.

Although polls show Americans want more economic support, Democrats – who narrowly control Congress – and Republicans differ sharply over how best to provide it.

The US coronavirus death toll this week surpassed the grim benchmark of 500,000 victims. Millions more have been left jobless by the pandemic.

The sweeping legislation is intended to stimulate the US economy and carry out Biden*s proposals to provide additional money for vaccines and other medical equipment.

Guatemala’s health minister Amelia Flores said on Tuesday that Guatemala hopes to receive the first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against the coronavirus in the coming weeks, Reuters reports.

“They already have the emergency registration to be able to enter the country and we are only waiting for the date, which we believe will be in a few weeks,” Flores said while leaving a meeting at Congress on Tuesday.

Guatemala had expected to receive its first shipment of vaccines through Covax by the end of this month, but that delivery has been delayed.

Flores added that Guatemala is also expecting to receive the first shipments of the Pfizer vaccine in the first week of April.

The Central American nation has recorded 172,000 positive cases of coronavirus and 6,315 deaths.

Here is the full story on AstraZeneca missing its EU vaccine target:

More on that story now, from Reuters:

Asked about the EU official’s comment, a spokesman for AstraZeneca initially said: “We are hopeful that we will be able to bring our deliveries closer in line with the advance purchase agreement.”

Later in the day a spokesman in a new statement said the company’s “most recent Q2 forecast for the delivery of its Covid vaccine aims to deliver in line with its contract with the European Commission.”

He added: “At this stage AstraZeneca is working to increase productivity in its EU supply chain and to continue to make use of its global capability in order to achieve delivery of 180 million doses to the EU in the second quarter.”

A spokesman for the European Commission, which coordinates talks with vaccine manufacturers, said it could not comment on the discussions as they were confidential.

He said the EU should have more than enough shots to hit its vaccination targets if the expected and agreed deliveries from other suppliers are met, regardless of the situation with AstraZeneca.

AstraZeneca Plc has told the European Union it expects to deliver less than half the Covid vaccines it was contracted to supply in the second quarter, an EU official told Reuters on Tuesday.

Contacted by Reuters, AstraZeneca did not deny what the official said, but a statement late in the day said the company was striving to increase productivity to deliver the promised 180 million doses.

The expected shortfall, which has not previously been reported, follows a big reduction in supplies in the first quarter and could hit the EU’s ability to meet its target of vaccinating 70% of adults by summer.

The EU official, who is directly involved in talks with the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker, said the company had told the bloc during internal meetings that it “would deliver less than 90 million doses in the second quarter.”

AstraZeneca’s contract with the EU, which was leaked last week, showed the company had committed to delivering 180 million doses to the 27-nation bloc in the second quarter.

The number of patients treated in intensive care units for Covid-19 in France has reached a 12-week peak of 3,435, as regional officials urge for a ban on public gatherings and consider a partial weekend lockdown.

Unlike some of its European neighbours, France has resisted a new national lockdown to control more contagious variants, hoping a curfew in place since 15 December can contain the pandemic.

The country ended its second national lockdown, which ran from 30 October to 15 December. But one of the conditions for the switch from lockdown to a national curfew was that the ICU figures remained between 2,500 and 3,000.

France reported 20,064 new Covid-19 cases, up from the previous Tuesday’s 19,590. The seven-day moving average of cases remained above 20,000 for the third day in a row, at 20,109, the highest since 20,466 on 5 February.

The northern port city of Dunkirk is urging the government to impose a ban on all public gatherings there until 15 March as a “last chance” move to halt a surge in Covid-19 infections.

Dunkirk’s mayor Patrice Vergriete did not advocate a partial weekend lockdown such as in the Mediterranean city of Nice, but added he would not oppose it if the government imposed such a measure.

The health minister Olivier Veran will head to Dunkirk on Wednesday.

The total cumulative number of cases in France rose to 3.63 million, the sixth highest in the world. The number of people who have died from Covid-19 infections rose by 431 to 85,044 – the seventh highest death toll globally – versus a seven-day moving average of 319, a more than one-and-a half month low.

The World Health Organization says that global deaths from coronavirus-related complications have declined by 20% in the last week, with cases dropping for the sixth consecutive week worldwide. Deaths have been falling for three consecutive weeks.

In a statement, the WHO said:

The number of global new cases reported continues to fall for the sixth consecutive week, with 2.4 million new cases last week, an 11% decline compared to the previous week.

The number of new deaths also continues to fall for the previous three weeks, with nearly 66 000 new deaths reported last week, a 20% decline as compared to the previous week. This brings the global cumulative numbers to 110.7 million cases and over 2.4 million deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.

I’ll be bringing you the latest updates for the next few hours – as always, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

The World Health Organization says that global deaths from coronavirus-related complications have declined by 20% in the last week, with cases dropping for the sixth consecutive week worldwide.

We’ll have more on that shortly – here, meanwhile, are the other key developments:

• Scotland is to look to begin a “substantial” easing of coronavirus restrictions from 26 April, first minister Nicola Sturgeon said.
• Ireland is to start reopening some schools next week but is extending other lockdown restrictions until April to prevent another explosion in Covid-19 cases.
• The Netherlands is expected to announce a slight easing of restrictions, allowing schools and hairdressers to reopen (see 3.19pm).
• Israel announced it would send a “token amount” of surplus coronavirus jobs to several countries (see 2.50pm), in the latest move to suggest limited global supplies will lead to a new form of diplomatic currency.
• Spain extends its ban on arrivals from Britain, Brazil and South Africa until 16 March to safeguard against the spread of new coronavirus strains from these countries.
• Greek hospital doctors went on strike and dozens marched in Athens to protest “suffocating” conditions at hospitals during the pandemic.
• Chinese officials did “little” in terms of epidemiological investigations into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan in the first eight months after the outbreak, according to an internal World Health Organization document.
• French investigators probe manslaughter allegations against Italy’s Costa Cruises over its handling of Covid-19 cases onboard one of its ships, which claimed the lives of three passengers.
• Ten orangutans were airlifted back to their natural habitat on Indonesia’s Borneo island, in the first release of the apes into the wild for a year due to the dangers of coronavirus infection.