Four new cases of Brazil variant found in England

Here is your evening roundup of today's news: 

• A number of European countries have paused their use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University coronavirus vaccine after someone who received it in Denmark died from a blood clot.

• The UK’s new customs border with the EU will not be fully operational until 2022, the Government has announced, as ministers sought to blame the delays on the Covid-19 pandemic.

• The Pfizer vaccine blocks 94 per cent of asymptomatic cases, an Israeli study has shown, reigniting hopes herd immunity can be reached.

• The Scottish Government is “anticipating” the need for annual Covid-19 booster vaccines, a senior adviser has said. 

• The NHS performed 40 per cent fewer heart operations as Britain entered lockdown this January, with total waiting lists now at a record high, new data shows. 

• China have tabled a surprise offer to get all Tokyo 2020 competitors vaccinated - but British athletes are expecting to remain “patiently in line" for a UK jab.

• Disruptions to family planning services linked to the Covid pandemic have led to an estimated 1.4 million unplanned pregnancies this year, United Nations data show.

• Cambodia has reported its first death from Covid-19 as the nation battles a new outbreak which has infected hundreds.

The Pfizer vaccine blocks 94 per cent of asymptomatic cases, an Israeli study has shown, reigniting hopes herd immunity can be reached.

The Israeli ministry of health found that the Pfizer vaccine has an efficacy of 97 per cent against disease and death and 94 per cent against infection without symptoms.

The figures, which have not yet been peer-reviewed by scientists, were welcomed by scientists as they will help the UK reach herd immunity and eventually relax social distancing rules. 

Israel is the first country to have vaccinated more than half its population, which it has done with Pfizer/BioNTech. 

 Izzy Lyons has the full story here

A Tory candidate set to be elected in May has come under fire after it was revealed that she accused politicians and the media of “creating panic and fear” over Covid-19 and attacked pay rises for public sector workers.

Sue Webber, a Conservative councillor in Edinburgh, also described party leader Douglas Ross as “out of his mind” for refusing to oppose “crazy travel bans”.

In a series of messages reported by The Herald, Ms Webber said it was “about time” that public sector pay be frozen.

When a colleague brought up council employees having to work extremely long hours, she added: “Welcome to the hours we work in the private sector”.

Writing in a Whatsapp group for Conservative councillors, she wrote: “I was thinking of a vote-winning policy called salary sacrifice where they only get 80 per cent and have to struggle like the others on furlough.”

Georgina Hayes has the full story here

Turkey plans to vaccinate 50 million people against Covid-19 by autumn in order to combat the spread of coronavirus after the number of daily cases surged to their highest level this year.

Turkey, with a population of 83 million, has so far carried out 10.56 million inoculations, putting it in the upper ranks of major countries in terms of the proportion of its population vaccinated so far, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca has said. 

"If we can vaccinate 50 million of our population before autumn as we plan, the pandemic will no longer be a heavy burden for us," Koca said in a live televised statement on the anniversary of the first Covid-19 case recorded in Turkey.

Turkey launched the rollout of Covid-19 doses developed by China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd on Jan. 14.

Koca has said it aimed to receive 105 million doses of this vaccine by end-May, enough to vaccinate everyone older than 20 twice.

 French health authorities see no reason to suspend the use of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccinations, despite suspensions in some other European countries, French Health Minister Olivier Veran said on Thursday.

Health authorities in Denmark, Norway and Iceland on Thursday suspended the use of AstraZeneca's shot following reports of the formation of blood clots in some people who had been vaccinated.

Veran said the French drug safety agency, in line with its European Union counterpart, had advised that there was no reason to suspend injections with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

"The benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine are considered higher than the risks at this point," Veran said at the government's weekly coronavirus briefing.

 Mexico's famous lucha libre wrestlers turned Latin America's largest wholesale food market into a battleground against Covid-19 this week, barging down walkways to urge people to wear masks to contain the virus.

One year into the pandemic, arenas that would usually draw thousands of rowdy spectators to watch the free-style wrestlers in lucha libre fights have stayed closed.

So the masked wrestlers have taken on a different fight.

"Put on a mask!" a group of wrestlers in traditional outfits urged buyers and sellers in the bustling thoroughfares of Mexico City's sprawling Central de Abasto market. "Be responsible!"

Those who resisted were sprayed down with disinfectant.

A controversial plan to take primary school children in Northern Ireland back out of classes for the week prior to the Easter holidays has been scrapped.

The move was agreed by the Stormont Executive on Thursday, but ministers put back decisions on the return of other school cohorts to class to next week when a wider review of lockdown restrictions will take place.

The Executive meeting also saw ministers agree to extend a financial support measure that has exempted businesses in certain sectors, including hospitality, tourism and retail, from paying rates.

After the meeting, First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill indicated that next week's lockdown review was also likely to bring announcements on the easing of some restrictions impacting wider society.

Hundreds of workers at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency have voted for industrial action over Covid health and safety concerns.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) at the office in Swansea, South Wales backed strikes by 71.6 per cent and other forms of industrial action by 76.9%, on a turnout of 50.3%.

The union says the office suffered the worst Covid workplace outbreak in the UK, but more than 2,000 staff have been going into the workplace every day.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "This result is a damning indictment on DVLA management in their abject failure to keep staff safe.

"Our members have sent a loud and clear message that they are not safe at their place of work. The strength of feeling amongst staff comes as no surprise, given the management's disregard for the safety of their workers.

The NHS performed 40 per cent fewer heart operations as Britain entered lockdown this January, with total waiting lists now at a record high, new data shows. 

In total 4.59 million people are waiting for hospital treatment – the highest since records began in 2007. 

The statistics, for January, show 304,044 people waiting more than a year for all types of hospital treatment. A year ago just 1,643 people waited this long. 

The statistics also show 39 per cent fewer heart operations and other cardiac procedures were performed in January, compared to the same time last year. 

Experts warned that operations which could save lives were once again being put on hold, because of the pandemic. 

Laura Donnelly has the full story here

Mozambique expects to receive 1.7 million more doses of Covid-19 vaccines by May from various bilateral sources, its prime minister said on Thursday.

Mozambique kicked off its Covid-19 vaccination program on Monday after receiving a donation of 200,000 doses from the China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) last month.

The government aims to inoculate around 60,000 health workers in the country of about 30 million, nearly half of which are adults. It wants to vaccinate 16 million people by 2022. So far, 15,000 people have been vaccinated.

"Our country will receive, by May of the current year 2021, over 1.7 million doses of vaccines within the scope of bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms," Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario told lawmakers.

The low-income southern African nation on Monday received 100,000 shots from India as a donation, as well as 384,000 vaccines from the distribution program COVAX, co-led by the World Health Organization.

Sir Keir Starmer has said NHS workers should get a "fair" pay rise, but declined to back a 12.5pc increase proposed by the Royal College of Nursing.

Launching his campaign for May's elections, the Labour leader targeted the Government's widely criticised recommendation of a one per cent raise for England's health workers.

He said on Friday that "a vote for Labour is a vote to support our nurses", but did not go as far as some supporters wanted in specifying the raise they deserve during the pandemic.

Asked at the virtual launch, Sir Keir said the increase should be "above inflation, a real rise".

"I think the starting point should be the 2.1 per cent that was promised and was, of course, budgeted for," he added.

Sir Keir did not directly answer questions about his support for potential strikes by nurses, saying it is in the hands of Boris Johnson to prevent industrial action.

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE will exceed their original global target for Covid-19 vaccines by as much as 20 per cent this year, producing 2.3 billion to 2.4 billion doses, Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla has said. 

"We will exceed clearly, this year, the 2 billion doses," Bourla said in an interview.

By the fourth quarter, the companies will be at a 3 billion dose a year run rate, and should be able to produce that much next year, he added.

Bourla said the company expects to be able to meet its commitment of supplying 120 million doses of its vaccine to the U.S. government by the end of March.

That would require them to deliver another 60 million doses over the next three weeks.

About one in five people aged 16 to 59 in England are likely to have had their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, new figures suggest.

An estimated 21.8 per cent of people in this age group had received their first jab by March 7.

Letters to people aged 56 to 59 in England inviting them to book their first dose of vaccine began to be sent out at the end of last week.

Vaccines have yet to be officially rolled out in England to the general population under 56, but a growing minority of people in this age group are likely to have been offered a dose due to their job or because they have a particular health condition.

The French health ministry said on Thursday the number of people treated in intensive care units (ICUs) for Covid-19 went up by 74, to 3,922, the highest for three and a half months.

There were 265 new deaths from the respiratory disease over the past 24 hours, taking the total to 89,830, the seventh-highest in the world, versus a seven-day daily moving average of 285.

The number of cases went up by 27,166, at 3.990 million, the world's sixth highest total, versus 30,303 Wednesday and 25,279 a week ago. 

A third wave of coronavirus could be triggered by unlocking restrictions too quickly before June, according to the Welsh Government's scientific advisers.

The Technical Advisory Group's report states that the increased transmissibility of the Kent variant means that a gradual easing of rules is needed in order to suppress the virus.

The report was made public on Thursday ahead of Friday's announcement on changes to Wales' lockdown rules, expected to include the move to a "stay local" requirement and reopening hairdressers and some non-essential retail.

The advice, which was given to ministers last month, says that Wales' phased return to face-to-face teaching in schools, alongside remaining in Alert Level 3 restrictions until the end of June, could be enough to keep levels of the virus down.

"These scenarios suggest that gradual unlocking of restrictions, combined with a gradual 'step up' of children being in school face to face, should be achievable without another wave of cases, hospitalisations and deaths in this period, as long as 'adherence with restrictions' remains high," the report said.

Teenagers who are mixing outside of school and meeting up in each other's homes after returning to class risk spreading coronavirus, the president of a school leaders union has said

.

Richard Sheriff, president of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), warned it could be "dangerous" if the reopening of schools in England prompts greater social mixing among young people.

Speaking ahead of ASCL's virtual annual conference, Mr Sheriff also said parents with "pointy elbows and lawyer friends" could widen the equality gap if they apply pressure to teachers deciding grades this year.

His comments came as millions of pupils returned to class in England after months of remote lessons.

Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria, next in the line of succession to the Swedish throne, and husband Prince Daniel have tested positive for coronavirus, the royal court has said.

"The Crown Princess and Prince Daniel display mild symptoms, but are feeling well considering the circumstances," the Swedish Court said in a statement.

As crown princess, Victoria, who is 40 years old, is next in the line of succession to the Swedish throne currently held by her father, King Karl XIV Gustaf.

Palestinians received 40,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine on Thursday, a donation by the United Arab Emirates that could boost a long-time rival of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ahead of an election.

Mohammad Dahlan, who fell out with Abbas and was dismissed from the president's Fatah party more than a decade ago, took credit for securing the shipment to Gaza from the UAE, where he lives in exile.

In a potential challenge to Abbas, Dahlan has announced plans to field a list of candidates he dubs "Fatah reformists" in a parliamentary election scheduled for May.

Dahlan has obtained 60,000 Sputnik V doses for Palestinians since February, outpacing official Palestinian authorities. 

He said half of the new shipment would be allocated to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where Abbas's Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule.

 Hospitals in Brazil's main cities are reaching full capacity, health officials have warned, as the country recorded the world's highest Covid-19 death toll over the past week. 

Intensive care wards for treating coronavirus patients have reached critical occupancy levels over 90 per cent in 15 of 27 state capitals, according to biomedical centre Fiocruz.

In Porto Alegre, the largest city in southern Brazil, there are no free intensive care units (ICUs), and occupancy has also hit 100 per cent in two other state capitals, Fiocruz reported.

The Health Ministry on Wednesday reported a record 2,286 deaths from Covud-19 in the last 24 hours, as new infections rose by 79,876.

With more than 270,000 deaths, Brazil's pandemic death toll over the past year trails only the United States. 

Homeless people should be prioritised to receive a coronavirus vaccine, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has said.

The JCVI said people who are homeless or sleeping rough are likely to have underlying health conditions and should be offered jabs alongside those in priority group six.

They should also be offered the vaccine without the need for an NHS number or GP registration, it added.

Professor Wei Shen Lim, JCVI Covid-19 chairman, said: "The JCVI's advice on Covid-19 vaccine prioritisation was developed with the aim of preventing as many deaths as possible.

"People experiencing homelessness are likely to have health conditions that put them at higher risk of death from Covid-19. 

The UK's official death toll from Covid-19 has passed 125,000, marking another grim milestone during the pandemic. 

There were 181 further deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test, Government figures showed, taking the total tally to 125,168, while 6,753 new cases were also reported.

Deaths, cases and hospitalisations have fallen rapidly in the last few weeks after infections soared at the start of the year, fuelled by a new highly-contagious variant of the virus.

The strict lockdown imposed in January and the mass rollout of vaccinations has helped to bring the numbers down. 

Liliana contracted coronavirus in September and since then, her gruelling post-viral symptoms have really taken their toll. 

Ten days after she first began displaying symptoms, she still felt dreadful.

She came out in a painful, stinging rash all over her body – it looked as if she’d been badly sunburnt – and the glands on her neck were so swollen she couldn’t move her head.

She was really suffering; she couldn’t eat, she was constantly nauseous and being sick.  She was admitted to hospital on October 1 as doctors were concerned about her rash and fever, and kept in for observation for 24 hours. 

Five months on, many of her symptoms remain.

The rash subsided, but it returns whenever she gets too warm. The house has to be kept cool and she has a fan next to her, even on the coldest days. 

The army pilots landed their helicopter on the tiny Irish island of Arranmore just before lunch on Thursday and handed over their precious cargo of Covid-19 vaccines to Dr. Kevin Quinn and his grinning daughter Aoife.

The arrival of first batch of shots last month was a "joyous occasion", Quinn said.

Thursday's delivery of second doses was even more momentous - he reckons he will now be able to fully vaccinate around half the population in the next few days.

With fewer than 500 residents, the remote island off the northwestern tip of Ireland is one of the hardest places to reach in a vaccination programme that, like in the rest of the European Union, has been hampered by supply problems.

The two army pilots took one hour and 40 minutes to fly in from the Casement Aerodrome military air base on the outskirts of Dublin. Aoife, who works as a nurse on Arranmore, helped her father and the crew carry the frozen boxes of Moderna shots to his car, parked down a lane.

Washington has told the European Union that it should not expect to receive AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines manufactured in the United States any time soon, two EU sources have said. 

The U.S. message could complicate vaccination plans in the 27-nation bloc, which has been grappling since January with delays in deliveries from vaccine makers.

"The U.S. told us there was no way it would ship AstraZeneca vaccines to the EU," said a senior official directly involved in EU-U.S. talks.

AstraZeneca told the EU earlier this year it would cut its supplies in the second quarter by at least half to less than 90 million doses, EU sources told news agency Reuters, after a bigger reduction in the first three months of the year.

A Nepalese restaurant has delivered its 100,000th free meal to members of the community since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Sujan Katuwal, owner of Panas Gurkha in Lewisham, south London, started giving away meals to NHS workers, homeless shelters and community centres after being forced to shut the restaurant's doors during the first lockdown last March.

On Thursday he was joined by actor Joanna Lumley, a long-time campaigner for the UK's Nepalese community, as he delivered meals to the Royal Artillery Barracks in Greenwich which took him past the 100,000 mark.

Ms Lumley said: "To look out and help people who are terribly busy and simply won't have time to prepare food is such a generous and open-hearted thing to do.

"They've looked after care workers, the homeless community and to crack through the 100,000-meal barrier is simply sensational."

Europe's drugs regulator backed the use of AstraZeneca's  vaccine on Thursday, saying its benefits outweighed the risks, after Denmark paused its use following reports of blood clot formation in some who had been vaccinated.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which called the suspension a precautionary measure, said there was no indication at present that vaccination had caused those conditions. 

The vaccine can continue to be administered while its safety committee investigates the cases of blood clot formations, the EMA added.

Cunard is to operate voyages around the UK's coastline this summer after extending the suspension of its international sailings.

The firm said it will operate staycation trips for UK residents-only on its ship Queen Elizabeth.

Details of timings and itineraries will be announced later this month.

The sailings will replace a number of international cruises that have been cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Cunard is owned by Carnival, whose other UK firm, P&O Cruises, announced last week it will offer a series of week-long UK sailings this summer.

Maritime minister Robert Courts told MPs on Monday that domestic cruises could be permitted from May 17.

Italy has banned a batch of the AstraZeneca/Oxford coronavirus vaccine following fears of a link to blood clots, according to the country's medicine regulator. 

"Following the reporting of some serious adverse events... AIFA has decided, as a precaution, to issue a ban on the use of this batch throughout the national territory," AIFA said in a statement.

It said that it "reserves the right to take further measures, if necessary," in coordination with the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

But it stressed that at the moment there had been no established link between the administration of the vaccine and the alleged side-effects.

Royal College of Nursing chief executive and general secretary Dame Donna Kinnair said the NHS staff survey results should "act as a stark reminder to ministers of why a one per cent pay rise is so disrespectful after the last year".

She said: "As the NHS tries to recover from the pandemic, nursing staff are still being pushed to the edge to keep services running. Rest and recuperation for health care staff must be central to decision-making. Support for staff must also include psychological and physical support for all that need it.

"Unless ministers recognise the warning signals of those who are thinking of leaving and the nearly half of those surveyed who felt unwell as a result of work-related stress, it makes it even harder for the NHS to return to normal.

"With tens of thousands of nursing vacancies across the NHS, much more needs to be done and this has to start with keeping and looking after those already in the profession."

Vaccine take-up in London among people aged 80 and over continues to lag behind other regions of England, figures have suggested.

An estimated 83.5 per cent of people in this age group in the capital have had their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine, according to NHS England.

Take-up in all other regions is estimated to be at least 94 per cent, with south-west England having the highest proportion at 98.7 per cent.

The number of people in England waiting to start hospital treatment has risen to a new record high.

Figures from NHS England show 4.59 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of January - the highest number since records began in August 2007.

The number waiting more than 52 weeks to start hospital treatment stood at 304,044 in the same month - the highest number for any calendar month since January 2008. 

Lockdown caused a 54 per cent drop in the number of people admitted for routine treatment in January compared with a year earlier.

Professor Stephen Powis, the national medical director for the NHS in England, said: "Admitting more than 100,000 Covid patients to hospital in a single month inevitably had a knock-on effect on some non-urgent care.

It is tantalising but risky to think a normal summer is just around the corner – but we must be cautious, says Professor John Ashton.

A year ago the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic.  The anniversary marks a moment where we can take stock of the greatest crisis facing the UK outside wartime for 100 years.

One year on, there is no doubt the UK has come up short in its response: there have been 130,000 Covid-related deaths, the country is still in lockdown and there have been many well-chronicled errors in handling the pandemic.

There can be little doubt that when Covid first made its UK appearance in February last year the government was caught flat footed. Years of austerity had hit the NHS and public health services alike, exacerbated by the disastrous health reforms of 2013. When the first cases of Covid were reported in York at the beginning of February 2020 the prime minister was distracted by Brexit and the complexities of his personal life. The Government wasted a month when it could have been tracking down cases of the virus through the time-honoured public health measures of street level testing and tracing, followed by isolation of those affected based on local knowledge and influence.

Four former U.S. presidents are urging Americans to get vaccinated as soon as Covid-19 doses are available.

Two public service announcements feature Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter along with first ladies Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Rosalynn Carter.

All have received doses of the Covid-19 vaccines.

One ad features photos of the former presidents and their spouses with syringes in their upper arms as they urge Americans to "roll up your sleeve and do your part" by getting vaccinated.

Australians will be able to fly around the country on half-price tickets under a new $1.2bn (£700m) tourism package announced today by the government. 

The discounts aim to encourage Australians to go on holiday while the international border remains closed, boosting business for local tourism operators who have struggled over the past year.

The government hopes it will encourage citizens to visit famous sites like the Great Barrier Reef, Gold Coast and Uluru. 

The discounted routes are between states with the exception of half price flights from South Australian capital Adelaide to Kangaroo Island, which is part of the same state.

The 13 regions intended to benefit from the scheme have tourism sectors that rely heavily on international visitors under normal circumstances.

Covid-19 case rates are continuing to fall in all regions of England, according to the latest weekly surveillance report from Public Health England.

• In Yorkshire and Humber the rate of new cases stood at 97.6 per 100,000 people in the seven days to March 7 - the highest rate of any region, but down from 115.6 in the previous week.
•  East Midlands recorded the second highest rate: 84.0, down from 122.9.
• South-west England recorded the lowest rate: 32.3, down from 43.9.

Italy's decision to ban a batch of AstraZeneca vaccine was taken following the deaths of two men in Sicily who had recently been inoculated, a source close to the matter said on Thursday.

Italy's medicines authority Aifa said earlier that the ban was a "precautionary" measure, adding that no link had been established between the vaccine and subsequent "serious adverse events."

The source said Aifa had moved after Stefano Paterno, a 43-year-old navy officer, died earlier this week of a suspected heart attack the day after his jab.

A second man, 50-year-old policeman Davide Villa, died last weekend, some 12 days after his jab. Local newspapers reported he fell ill within 24 hours of his injection and never recovered.

The source said both men had received shots from AstraZeneca's ABV2856 batch.

Brazil has registered its deadliest day of the Covid pandemic so far, registering a record 2,286 deaths from Covid-19 in one day on Wednesday. 

The South American country of 212 million people, which has the world's second-highest death toll in the pandemic, is struggling to deal with a crush of cases that has pushed many hospitals close to the breaking point.

The new daily record brought the number of people who have died of Covid-19 in Brazil to 270,656, second only to the United States.

The country also registered its third-highest number of coronavirus infections Wednesday, with nearly 80,000.

"We're at the worst moment of the pandemic in Brazil. The transmission rate with these new variants is making the epidemic even worse," said Margareth Dalcolmo, a doctor and researcher at leading public health center Fiocruz.

Shareable videos of an imam, a pastor and clinicians have been created with the aim of dispelling misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine.

A series of clips and images have been put together by the Government with the support of social media giants including Facebook and Twitter, in a bid to address concerns about low vaccine uptake among ethnic minority communities.

Trusted community figures feature in the material, urging people to be mindful of misinformation and "check before you share".

The campaign is particularly aimed at countering the spread of misleading and false details via private messaging apps such as WhatsApp, where it is harder to detect.

It comes after Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said anti-vaccination messages are "very, very cleverly, hyper super-forensically targeted at different communities" with false claims about fertility "proving to be sadly quite potent".

The route of the prestigious Paris-Nice week-long race's finale will need to be 'adapted' amid Covid-19 restrictions in the Azurean city, regional authorities have said. 

"Technical meetings are underway between the organisers and the State services to adapt the course," the Prefecture des Alpes Maritimes said in a statement.

"In any case, these stages can only take place outside the locked down area and without spectators."

Saturday's penultimate stage is due to start in Nice and Sunday's final stage was expected to start in Nice and finish on its famous Promenade des Anglais, the Cote d'Azur's most iconic walk.

Nice mayor Christian Estrosi has requested the Promenade, which would normally be full of people strolling in the spring sunshine but has been closed for the last two weekends, be opened to pedestrians and cyclists this Saturday and Sunday.

The backlog of criminal cases waiting to be dealt with by crown courts in England and Wales has hit its highest level in a year.

The latest Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures show there were 56,544 outstanding crown court cases at the end of January, up from 55,676 in December.

This is compared with 38,411 a year earlier, before the coronavirus pandemic took hold and courts were initially forced to shut as the country went into lockdown.

The latest inspection by Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate (HMCPSI) said delays in cases coming to court affect "the ability of victims, witnesses and defendants to recollect the events and can impact on their willingness to attend court to give evidence".

Meanwhile some lawyers have said they are already seeing trials being listed for 2023.

The Government has said it is investing £450 million to "boost recovery in the courts and deliver swifter justice", insisting this is "already yielding results".

Africa is poised to surpass four million Covid-19 infections this week since the continent’s first confirmed case in February 2020.

The year-long battle against the virus, which has also claimed over 106 000 lives, is now receiving a crucial boost with the arrival of vaccines through the COVAX Facility – a multi-partner vaccine procurement platform.

While reported deaths have dropped by more than 50 per cent over the past month compared with the previous proportion of deaths among confirmed cases (3.6pc) remains higher than the global average.

Over 14.6 million vaccine doses have been delivered to 22 African countries since February 24 through COVAX. 

Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said: “The pandemic has nearly knocked loose the linchpin of the health systems in many countries.” 

The European Union's drugs regulator has recommended conditionally approving Johnson & Johnson's single dose Covid-19 vaccine.

The bloc is attempting to speed up a stuttering inoculation campaign and boost its supplies of vaccines.

The vaccine is the fourth to be endorsed for use in the EU following vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech , AstraZeneca-Oxford University and Moderna, and is recommended for those over 18 years of age. 

The United States, Canada and Bahrain have also approved the dose. South Africa is carrying out an expedited review.

Norway halted on Thursday the rollout of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine, following a similar move by Denmark.

"This is a cautionary decision," Geir Bukholm, Director of Infection Prevention and Control at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, told a news conference. (Reporting by Gwladys Fouche and Terje Solsvik

France will ease some Covid-19 restrictions on international travel outside Europe, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.

The ministry said in a statement that travellers to or from Australia, South Korea, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Britain and Singapore would no longer have to need a compelling reason to travel.

All other restrictions, such as a requirement for a negative Covid-19 test less than 72 hours before travel, would remain in place, the ministry said, adding a decree was due to be published on March 12.

Sweden, which has shunned lockdown throughout the pandemic, registered 5,300 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, health agency statistics showed.

The country of 10 million inhabitants registered 23 new deaths, taking the total to 13,111. The deaths registered have occurred over several days and sometimes weeks.

Sweden's death rate per capita is many times higher than that of its Nordic neighbours' but lower than in several European countries that opted for lockdowns. 

Consideration will have to be given to how vaccines continue to be manufactured as the world emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, an expert has said.

Vaccines are currently produced in multiple-dose glass vials, but given the speciality of these, they may not be a viable option going forward as billions of people require jabs every year.

Dr Ian Muir, chief executive of Porton Biopharma and lead for the contract manufacture team of the UK's Vaccine Task Force, said there are only a few manufacturers in the world who can make the specialised vials the vaccines are currently delivered in.

Dr Muir said:  "As we look forward more globally, I think the question that needs to be addressed is whether 10-dose glass vials are really the answer for seven billion people and whether we need to look at other delivery systems.

"So whether that is single use plastic vials or single use prefilled syringes or other alternative technologies that are out there, because just making enough glass, anywhere in the world, and filling it is going to be a real constraint."

The EU President has hit back at the UK in the bitter row over vaccine nationalism, asking "how many doses did they export?".

Charles Michel said "it is unfair to attack the EU" over its export transparency ban, which Brussels could extend today.

He told Politico: "I confirm what I said because there are different ways to impose a limitation or a ban. There are different ways, not only via one executive order or via one legislation.

"There are different ways. And I repeat, it’s very simple, one certainty and one question. What’s certain: Europe is a continent which exports a lot of doses, that’s why I wrote it very clearly.

"It’s unfair to attack the European Union on this topic, saying that we would choose vaccination nationalism or protectionism. This is not the truth. The facts are the facts. At a certain point, it’s my call for more transparency. How many doses did they export?"

One shot of the Pfizer vaccine gives inadequate protection to cancer sufferers, new research suggests.

Scientists said the current strategy of delaying the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine must be urgently reviewed for cancer patients in light of the findings.

A study from King's College London and the Francis Crick Institute - which has not yet been peer-reviewed - found that three weeks after the first jab, antibody responses were found in 39 per cent of people with solid cancers and 13 per cent of people with blood cancer.

This compared with 97 per cent of people with no cancer, according to the research on 205 people, who comprised 151 with cancer and 54 healthy controls.

Cancer patients given a second dose of the vaccine three weeks after the first - as recommended by Pfizer - had a much better immune response, with 95 per cent of those with solid tumours showing detectable antibodies. 

Laura Donnelly has the full story here

Half of NHS staff in England who worked in coronavirus settings felt unwell due to work-related stress, the NHS Staff Survey 2020 found.

It showed that 50 per cent of the staff who said they had worked on a Covid-19 specific ward or area at any time reported feeling unwell as a result of work-related stress.

This compared to 41 per cent of the staff who had not worked in Covid settings feeling unwell as a result of work-related stress.

Greece is laying out the sunbeds and beach umbrellas as it prepares to reopen to tourists in May and resurrect an industry which suffered one of its worst years in years due to the pandemic. 

"All you need is Greece," Tourism Minister Harry Theoharis said this week in an address from the Acropolis museum, home to sculptures from Greek antiquity.

The tourism sector accounts for about a fifth of Greece's economy.

As vaccination programmes get underway around the world, Greece is relying on its record in handling the pandemic to draw foreign tourists back to its islands and monuments.

It has led calls for Europe to adopt a vaccine passport showing whether someone has been vaccinated to allow travel over the summer.

Theoharis said Greece would open to visitors either way.

"People who are vaccinated, have tested negative or recovered from the disease and have antibodies are welcome to Greece and we will welcome them irrespective of any agreements," Theoharis said. 

Despite India recording its biggest single-day spike in fresh Covid-19 cases in two months on Wednesday, public health experts do not believe the country has entered into a second wave as outbreaks are localised.

India reported 22,854 new infections but 86 per cent of the cases were found in six out of the country’s 36 states and union territories - Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu. 

The authorities are urging people to still adhere to precautionary measures, such as wearing a mask and maintaining social distance, so these localised outbreaks do not then spread nationwide.

The Maharashtra state government is also said to be considering re-implementing some lockdown measures.

Public health experts are blaming the steady increase in new infections on life largely returning to normal in India, with restrictions lifted on domestic travel and the majority of Indians returning to work.

The European Commission has extended until the end of June its scheme requiring authorisation for Covid-19 vaccine exports, due to continued European Union concerns about supplies within the 27-nation bloc.

The move announced on Thursday comes after the EU blocked a shipment of vaccines to Australia last week under the mechanism set up as a reaction to drugmakers' announcements of delays in the deliveries of vaccines to the EU.

The delays have slowed the roll-out of inoculations in many EU countries, much to public frustration.

The Commission, which has overseen vaccine orders for EU member states, said that in the six weeks of the scheme to date it had cleared 249 requests for exports of 34 million doses to 31 countries.

Eight further export requests are pending approval, an EU official said.

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech has said that real-world data from Israel suggests that their vaccine is 94 per cent effective in preventing asymptomatic infections, meaning the vaccine could significantly reduce transmission.

The companies also said the latest analysis of the Israeli data shows the vaccine was 97 per cent effective in preventing symptomatic disease, severe disease and death.

That is basically in line with the 95 per cent efficacy Pfizer and BioNTech reported from the vaccine's late-stage clinical trial in December.

According to the analysis, unvaccinated individuals were 44 times more likely to develop symptomatic Covi-19 and 29 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than those who had received the vaccine.

The data, collected between Jan. 17 and March 6, has not yet been peer reviewed. 

The first wave of the pandemic wiped out some six million jobs in the European Union, according to a study released on Thursday.

Temporary contractors, young and female workers at times were hit harder than in the 2008-09 financial crisis.

The Eurofound study said teleworking, short-time work schemes and other state support helped protect jobs but also meant more people slid into protracted professional inactivity rather than figuring in unemployment statistics.

"There were 5.7 million fewer people in employment in the EU by spring 2020 than at the end of 2019, and 6.3 million fewer compared with the trend growth that could have been expected before the Covid-19 pandemic," Eurofound said.

"Younger workers experienced the sharpest declines in employment," said the report, stressing youth employment levels in the pandemic shrank more than during the financial crisis that started in 2008, risking another 'lost generation'.

Denmark has put using AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine doses on hold for two weeks after reports of cases of blood clots forming, including one death, authorities have announced. 

Officials did not say how many reports of blood clots there had been, but Austria has stopped using a batch of AstraZeneca shots while investigating a death from coagulation disorders and an illness from a pulmonary embolism.

"Both we and the Danish Medicines Agency have to respond to reports of possible serious side-effects, both from Denmark and other European countries," the director of the Danish Health Authority, Soren Brostrom, said in a statement.

"It is currently not possible to conclude whether there is a link. We are acting early, it needs to be thoroughly investigated," Health Minister Magnus Heunicke said on Twitter.

The vaccine would be suspended for 14 days. The health agency did not give details of the Danish blood clot victim.

A Covid-1 outbreak at a gym popular with expatriates in Hong Kong has forced over 240 people being sent into quarantine, the city's government has said.

Positive cases have spilled into the banking sector and the city's international school network.

Hong Kong's health bureau told a briefing that a Covid-19 cluster emerged at Ursus Fitness, a gym in the trendy Sai Ying Pun district near the financial centre, which had led to a spike in cases across the city.

At least nine schools have been temporarily closed as a precautionary measure, schools and teachers said on Thursday.

A confirmed case at Swiss bank Credit Suisse in Hong Kong resulted in a whole floor of staff being sent for tests, with some put into quarantine and many asked to work from home.

Sir Keir Starmer accused Boris Johnson of slamming the door on carers after clapping for them and criticised the Tories for failing to fix social care.

Launching his local election campaign with a virtual speech, the Labour leader said: "When I clapped for our carers, I meant it.

"The Prime Minister clapped for carers, then he slammed the door on them.

"Every vote in this election is a chance to show the Conservatives that the British people value our NHS and our key workers so much more than this Government does.

"It's also the chance to show that we can't wait any longer for the Conservatives to fix social care."

Science has been “crushed” by frosty geopolitical relations and anti-China rhetoric, according to members of the World Health Organization-led team exploring the origins of the coronavirus.  

Earlier this month international experts spent a month in Wuhan – where the first Covid-19 cases were detected in late 2019 – during a highly anticipated trip to investigate how Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, emerged. 

 But, speaking at an event hosted by the think tank Chatham House on Wednesday, the ecologist Dr Peter Daszak suggested efforts to study the virus’s origins have been disrupted and delayed by international squabbles, particularly between Beijing and Washington  

“We’ve not had access to work in China on the origins for the last 12 months, which is ironic because we could have been on the ground, working with our Chinese colleagues sooner,” he told the virtual event.  

“By now we may have had some really important answers as to how [Sars-Cov-2] emerged. The rhetoric has held that up… to some extent science is being used and abused.”  

Sarah Newey has more details on the hour-long briefing: 

Disruptions to family planning services linked to the Covid pandemic have led to an estimated 1.4 million unplanned pregnancies this year, United Nations data show.

Figures from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) show that in the last year nearly 12 million women were unable to get contraception, leading to around 1.4 million unintended pregnancies.

The study of 115 million low and middle income countries show that the pandemic caused an average of 3.6 months disruption to family planning services.

Most of the disruption occurred in April and May 2020 when countries were forced to divert resources away from their reproductive health services. Women also lost access to health services due to movement restrictions or fear of travelling to health facilities.

“Pregnancies don’t stop for pandemics, or any crisis. We must ensure that women and girls have uninterrupted access to life-saving contraceptives and maternal health medicines,” said Dr Natalia Kanem, UNFPA executive director.

Anne Gulland reports:

President Joe Biden will mark the one-year anniversary of the U.S. coronavirus lockdown tonight with a prime-time speech commemorating losses from the pandemic while expressing hope for the future as vaccinations increase.

The Democratic president, who campaigned on a promise to halt the spread of the virus more effectively than his predecessor, Donald Trump, has warned Americans that more deaths are to be expected. 

But with the vaccinated population slowly increasing, Biden is conveying fresh hope even as he urges people to continue to be cautious against further waves. 

More than 528,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States, and just about 10 per cent of the country has been fully vaccinated.

Biden said on Wednesday that he would use his 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT) address to discuss "what we've been through as a nation this past year."

Danny Mortimer, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said the overall picture shown by the NHS Staff Survey 2020 was encouraging but there were "significant areas of concern".

He added: "The overall picture is encouraging given the unprecedented and most challenging of times NHS staff have worked through over the past 12 months.

"There are though significant areas of concern and the recent data on the continued poorer experience of ethnic minority staff starkly reminds NHS leaders that staff experience varies unacceptably in their organisations.

"With the Government once again reiterating its intention to offer only a 1% pay rise there can be no room for complacency when the results also show that around a third of staff are considering leaving their jobs and nearly one in five are thinking of quitting the health service entirely.

"While there has been an increase in the number of staff agreeing that their organisation has enough staff for them to do their job properly, this is still less than two in five, and reinforces the need for a funded workforce plan to give staff hope that the vacancies in their teams will be filled longer term."

Almost a fifth of staff are considering leaving the NHS - although this has fallen slightly since 2019, from 19.6% to 18.2%, according to the survey.

It includes people considering retiring or taking a career break and those considering moving to a job outside healthcare or in healthcare but outside the NHS.

Emergency admissions to A&E departments at hospitals in England also showed a fall last month, down from 510,811 in February 2020 to 421,651 in February 2021.

NHS England again said this is likely to be a consequence of the coronavirus outbreak.

A&E attendances at hospitals in England continue to be below levels of a year ago, according to the latest figures from NHS England.

A total of 1.3 million attendances were recorded in February 2021, down from 2 million in February 2020.

After adjusting for the leap year in 2020, NHS England said attendances were down year-on-year by 33%.

NHS England said the drop is "likely to be a result of the Covid-19 response" - suggesting that people are still staying away from A&E departments because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The number of people in England waiting to start hospital treatment has risen to a new record high.

A total of 4.59 million people were waiting to start treatment at the end of January 2021, according to figures from NHS England.

This is the highest number since records began in August 2007.

The number of people having to wait more than 52 weeks to start hospital treatment stood at 304,044 in January 2021 - the highest number for any calendar month since January 2008.

One year earlier, in January 2020, the number having to wait more than 52 weeks to start treatment stood at just 1,643.

Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner defended Sir Keir Starmer's approach to handling the pandemic as leader of the opposition.

"Keir Starmer made a decision, which I think was the right one, to try and be constructive, and to ensure that we gave constructive opposition that worked in the national interest," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"And that's what we focused on. Now I know some people felt that that was giving them an easy ride, it wasn't.

"It's incredibly frustrating, especially when you see the kids not getting the laptops they need, when they're not giving them the food, when the billions of pounds has been squandered.

"We've highlighted those things but we've tried to be constructive."

A monoclonal antibody drug reduces hospital admission or death from Covid-19 by 85%, the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has announced.

The drug, called VIR-7831, is a new treatment for people with mild to moderate illness, and the study has been so successful that it has been stopped early.

GSK and its partner, Vir Biotechnology, plan to immediately seek an emergency use authorisation in the United States and approval in other countries, including potentially in the UK.

Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-produced molecules that mimic human antibodies.

The global phase 3 clinical trial based its initial analysis on data from 583 patients at risk of hospital admission.

GSK said VIR-7831 works in two ways - by blocking the virus's entry into healthy cells and also clearing infected cells.

Ministers are under pressure to address the unequal effect of lockdown on men and women, after figures showed more than half of women said their wellbeing was negatively affected by home schooling.

The Office for National Statistics found 67 per cent of women and 52 per cent of men had home-schooled a child between Jan 13 and Feb 7 and 53 per cent of women said that had hit their wellbeing, compared to 45 per cent of men.

It has led to calls for the Government to ensure women are included in its drive to “build back better”.

The UK now has up to 10million extra vaccine doses which will allow for a surge in jabs over the coming weeks, the i newspaper has reported. 

Wales’s First Minister Mark Drakeford told the paper a recent "dip" in vaccinations was now over, and predicted a large increase in the number of doses being delivered in March.

While Westminster has refused to publish updates on vaccine supply, Holyrood has said Scotland has around

It's understood the doses are allocated to each nation according to its share of the UK population, suggesting the number of jabs available for the UK as a whole is around 10 million.

When an unknown virus was discovered in a Wuhan market, few could have predicted it would change the world, writes Verity Bowman. 

But the disease we now know as Covid-19 has spread across the globe at terrifying speed, presenting humanity with an unprecedented challenge. 

One year after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus to be a pandemic, we look back at the events that have shaped the global crisis. 

See our interactive timeline here.

Heathrow's passenger numbers were down 92% year-on-year in February, with 461,000 people travelling through the London airport.

This is the lowest monthly figure since 1966.

The airport said the decline was due to the ban on non-essential travel, quarantine rules and the requirement for pre-departure and post-arrival coronavirus testing.

Chief executive John Holland-Kaye said: "Aviation has always led the UK economy out of recession, and we will do so again.

"The PM's Global Travel Taskforce can lead the way on reopening international travel and trade safely - but ministers must get a grip of Border Force's performance so that visitors get a warm welcome to Britain, not a six-hour queue."

More than 40 people are facing fines of £800 after being caught at an illegal rave in the vault of a disused bank, police said.

The Metropolitan Police said officers heard loud music while on patrol in Hortus Road in Southall, west London, just before 9am last Sunday.

They identified the source of the music as a derelict building, and discovered people had made their way into the premises through a gap in a fence, with DJ equipment and speakers having been set up inside.

The officers then entered the venue and reported all 44 people inside for consideration of a fixed penalty notice of £800 before removing them from the premises.

"It is disappointing some selfish people still insist on breaking Covid regulations," said Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Bowen, from the Met's West Area Command Unit, which covers the area.

"We are all excited about the prospect of returning to normal in June - and some changes to restrictions are imminent - but behaviour like this risks undermining the road map out of lockdown and could potentially cause further delays by creating a breeding ground for the virus.

"We will continue to do our part in shutting illegal events like this down and taking action where necessary."

Here is your Daily Telegraph on Thursday, Mar 11.

A third wave of the coronavirus is sweeping across large areas of Europe and threatens to engulf many countries quicker than they can hope to vaccinate their citizens.

In Italy, infections have risen by 50 per cent in a fortnight, and there are now 300 deaths a day. In Hungary, infections have more than doubled in 14 days. In the Czech Republic, they are now so high local immunologists say the country could achieve herd immunity without the help of vaccines.

“Fear has turned into anger and exhaustion,” Italy's influential La Repubblica newspaper said on Wednesday. “We’re waiting for the vaccines like pioneers in a Western movie, surrounded by Indians, scanning the horizon and waiting for the Seventh Cavalry.”

Read more:  Europe faces third wave as it lags behind with vaccinations

Donald Trump has issued a statement that takes credit for the US vaccine rollout and claims that, if it was not for him, Americans would not have received the jab for five years.

The former US president said: "I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the Covid-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) vaccine, that if I wasn’t president, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all.

"I hope everyone remembers."

Almost one million Australians will be able to enjoy half-price flights to domestic holiday destinations under a government plan to boost tourism as Covid border closures keep international travellers out.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government would spend $1.2 billion (about £667 million) to subsidise 800,000 flights to areas outside major cities that were "heavily dependent on international tourists".

Half-price airfares will be offered to entice Australians to book holidays at places like the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru and the Gold Coast.

Australia has been effectively sealed off from the rest of the world since shutting its border last March in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and is yet to announce when it will reopen to overseas visitors.

• Boris Johnson has hit back at EU claims that the UK has blocked exports of coronavirus jabs and declared Britain opposed "vaccine nationalism in all its forms"
• Summer holidays abroad are on the cards as Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, said he was “hopeful” that talks with other Governments would “make it happen”
• A third wave of the coronavirus is sweeping across large areas of Europe and threatens to engulf many countries quicker than they can hope to vaccinate their citizens
• Labour is set to weaponise the nurses pay row as the party unveils its election slogan which states "a vote for Labour is a vote to support our NHS"
• The Prime Minister rowed in to defend NHS Test and Trace on Wednesday as a former Treasury chief described it as “the most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time”
• A “thank you” video paying tribute to the team behind the UK vaccine rollout is due to be released by Downing Street in the coming days