Boris Johnson urges caution over foreign holidays – as it happened

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• Vaccine maker the Serum Institute of India is to invest in facilities in Britain and could manufacture inoculations in the UK in future, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, said.
• Brazil is close to signing a second contract with Pfizer for another 100 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, of which 35 million shots are due to be delivered in October, the country’s health minister, Marcelo Queiroga, said.
• The US Food and Drug Administration is preparing to authorize Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for children aged between 12 and 15 years by early next week, the New York Times reported.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) has pleaded with the G7 to fund the global Covid-19 recovery, warning the crisis cannot be resolved worldwide if they do not step up, AFP reports.
• France’s new daily Covid-19 infections fell to an almost two-month low on average on Monday, Reuters reports. But after falling for five days in a row, the number of people in hospital with the disease went up by 132, a second consecutive increase, to reach 28,950.
• Morocco has detected its first two cases of the Indian Covid variant, the health ministry said.
• Algeria has detected its first cases of the coronavirus variant first discovered in India, state research centre Pasteur Institute said, Reuters reports.
• Tanzania has announced additional anti-Covid measures in an effort to prevent the importation of new variants.
• Denmark’s health authority confirmed the country will exclude the Johnson and Johnson’s Covid vaccine from its vaccination programme, becoming the first country to do so.
• Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, ordered the end to a blanket lockdown in the capital, Phnom Penh, despite the country registering a record 841 new Covid cases on Monday.
• The UK is on course to scrap the social distancing rule that requires people to stay at least one 1 metre apart by 21 June, prime minister Boris Johnson suggested. He urged caution over foreign holidays but said he expected there to be “some openings up” on 17 May.
• Trinidad and Tobago is tightening lockdown restrictions for three weeks starting at midnight as the number of new Covid-19 cases hits record highs and the islands face a potential shortage of hospital beds, Reuters reports.

Trinidad and Tobago is tightening lockdown restrictions for three weeks starting at midnight as the number of new Covid-19 cases hits record highs and the islands face a potential shortage of hospital beds, Reuters reports.

The prime minister, Keith Rowley, said that under the new restrictions, only businesses deemed essential services such as supermarkets, pharmacies and financial services would remain open, for reduced hours, in addition to the key energy and manufacturing sectors.

The government shut down shopping malls, cinemas, theatres, restaurants, bars, places of worship, beauty salons and fitness centres last week in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus. Other non-essential retail and food businesses such as street-food vendors will close from midnight.

“Our healthcare system is now in danger of [being] overrun because of the rate of infection we are experiencing,” Rowley said.

Here is more on the UK’s trade deal with India.

Vaccine maker the Serum Institute of India is to invest in facilities in Britain and could manufacture inoculations in the UK in future, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, said.

AFP reports:

Johnson’s Downing Street office said the £240 million ($334 million) project would include a sales office, “clinical trials, research and development and possibly manufacturing of vaccines”.

Downing Street said the vaccine maker’s plans were part of a wider package of trade and investment deals with India worth £1bn that it expects to create over 6,500 jobs.

The US Food and Drug Administration is preparing to authorise Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine for children aged between 12 and 15 years by early next week, the New York Times reported.

The companies earlier this month applied to the FDA for potential approval of the vaccine, which has already been cleared in the US for people aged 16 and above.

Brazil registered 983 Covid-19 deaths on Monday and 24,619 further cases, according to data released by the nation’s health ministry.

The South American country has now registered 408,622 total coronavirus deaths and 14,779,529 total confirmed cases, Reuters reports.

Brazil is close to signing a second contract with Pfizer for another 100 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine, of which 35 million shots are due to be delivered in October, the country’s health minister, Marcelo Queiroga, said.

Reuters reports:

That raises to 200 million doses of the Pfizer shot for Brazil this year, he said, aimed at relieving the shortage of vaccines.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second-largest city, announced over the weekend that it was delaying second doses of CoronaVac, the vaccine made by China’s Sinovac Biotech, because it was running out of doses.

The second dose will only be applied every other day until more supplies arrive from the finishing facility at the Butantan biomedical centre in Sao Paulo.

Most Covid-19 shots administered so far in Brazil have been CoronaVac, but the Butantan finishing line halted two weeks ago due to delayed shipments of active ingredients from China.

Colombia is bracing for further unrest after a weekend in which largely peaceful nationwide demonstrations were met with a violent police reaction which left at least 16 demonstrators and one police officer dead and hundreds injured.

Videos shared on social media over the weekend showed police firing at protesters sometimes from close range, ramming crowds with motorcycles, and bashing demonstrators with their shields.

The drama of the weekend was encapsulated in a shocking TV news clip in which a live shot of the central city of Ibagué captured the moment in which a woman learnt that her 19-year-old son had died after being shot by police. “Kill me too, they also killed me,” she cried. “He was my only son!”

The demonstrations began with a general strike last Wednesday over an unpopular tax reform but quickly escalated when protesters were met by riot police armed with teargas, bean-bag rounds and billy clubs.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) has pleaded with the G7 to fund the global Covid-19 recovery, warning the crisis cannot be resolved worldwide if they do not step up, AFP reports.

• France’s new daily Covid-19 infections fell to an almost two-month low on average on Monday, Reuters reports. But after falling for five days in a row, the number of people hospitalised by the disease went up by 132, a second consecutive increase, to reach 28,950.

• Morocco has detected its first two cases of the Indian Covid variant, the health ministry said.

• Algeria has detected its first cases of the coronavirus variant first discovered in India, state research centre Pasteur Institute said, Reuters reports.

• Tanzania has announced additional anti-Covid measures in an effort to prevent the importation of new variants.

• Denmark’s health authority confirmed the country will exclude the Johnson and Johnson’s Covid vaccine from its vaccination programme, becoming the first country to do so.

• Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, ordered the end to a blanket lockdown in the capital, Phnom Penh, despite the country registering a record 841 new Covid cases on Monday.

• The UK is on course to scrap the social distancing rule that requires people to stay at least one 1 metre apart by 21 June, prime minister Boris Johnson suggested. He urged caution over foreign holidays but said he expected there to be “some openings up” on 17 May.
  

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will lift most of their coronavirus capacity restrictions on businesses from 19 May, the governors of the three states said.
“New Yorkers have made tremendous progress,” New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, said. “It’s time to readjust the decision made on the science and on the data.”

Amusement parks, salons and offices are among the other types of businesses which will soon no longer be subject to state-imposed capacity restrictions, although all businesses can still set their own restrictions, Reuters reports.

Cuomo also announced the New York City subway system, which has been closing from 2am to 4am for disinfecting stations and carriages, will resume its 24-hour service on 17 May.

Mexico’s health ministry has reported 1,027 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 112 more deaths, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 2,349,900 and fatalities to 217,345, Reuters reports.

Separate government data published in March suggested the real death toll may be at least 60% above the confirmed figure.

France’s new daily Covid-19 infections fell to an almost two-month low on average on Monday, Reuters reports.

But after falling for five days in a row, the number of people in hospital for the disease went up by 132, a second consecutive increase, to reach 28,950.

From today, a restriction limiting people to a 10 kilometre (6.2 mile) radius from their homes was lifted and secondary schools partly reopened.

One in four Spaniards has now had one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, health authorities said, Reuters reports.

In total, 12,162,359 people have received one dose of one of the four vaccines being used in Spain – or 25.6% of the population of 47 million.

Some 5,098,903 people have had both doses of the vaccine, or 11% of the population.

Algeria has detected its first cases of the coronavirus variant first discovered in India, state research centre Pasteur Institute said, Reuters reports.
Six cases of the variant have been confirmed in the coastal province of Tipaza, about 70 km (43 miles) west of the capital, Algiers, it said.

Pfizer said it has told the Indian government that there was no concern over the safety of its Covid-19 vaccine.
Reuters reports:

The government in mid-April made it easier for foreign vaccines approved in the west and Japan to sell in India, though companies would still have to initiate a local clinical trial within 30 days of receiving emergency use authorisation.

Previously, companies were required to do the trial prior to approval. India has invited Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna Inc to sell their vaccines to the country but none have applied to do so yet.

Pfizer, however, said it is holding fresh talks with the government after having withdrawn its initial application in February over the earlier local trial rule.

“Pfizer’s application for emergency use authorization was supported with data that shows an overall efficacy rate of 95% with no safety concerns,” a company spokeswoman said when asked if it had sought an exception even to the current trial rule in its discussions with the government.

Israel will begin sending emergency medical aid including oxygen equipment to India on Tuesday, the foreign ministry said.

The ministry said a series of flights throughout the week would carry aid that included thousands of group and individual oxygen generators, as well as respirators, medications and other medical equipment, Reuters reports.

“The extension of emergency assistance is an expression of the deep friendship between our countries in India’s time of need,” Israel’s foreign minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, said.

Tunisian government doctors in non-emergency roles launched a three-day strike on Monday to demand premiums paid to other frontline healthcare workers tackling coronavirus.

AFP reports:

Doctors, except those “in emergency services, dialysis and Covid services”, were called out on strike, said Noureddine Ben Abdellah, secretary general of the union of doctors, dentists and pharmacists, part of the powerful UGTT trades union.

The government has put in place bonus pay for other healthcare workers but not doctors, Ben Abdellah said.

The union is also calling for temporary doctors to be hired to help cope with rising coronavirus cases.

The strike, which comes as Tunisia struggles to stem a surge in coronavirus cases needing hospital treatment, caused temporary delays to the rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations in some centres.