Coronavirus: US vaccine drive reaches 175m people — as it happened

Actress Jessica Alba’s organic beauty and baby care brand, Honest Company, had a strong start to 2021, driven by the rollout of sanitisation and disinfecting products during the height of the pandemic.  

The company’s household and wellness product category saw revenue soar 53 per cent year on year for the three months to the end of March, which was attributed to sales from its sanitisation and disinfecting products, according to its first earnings report since going public in early May. The group began distributing disinfecting products during the second half of 2020.

“While we were still able to see significant growth in household and wellness, we are starting to see households and retailers destock sanitisation and disinfecting products as more consumers become vaccinated and return to their pre-Covid routine,” chief financial officer Kelly Kennedy said during an earnings call on Wednesday.

Overall, revenue stood at a record $81m for the first quarter, a 12 per cent increase over the same period last year. Sales of diapers and wipes were down 2 per cent, while its skin and personal care division saw revenue increase 42 per cent.  

Digital channel revenue grew 2 per cent to $42.5m. Retail channel revenue stood at $38.6m, up from $30.9m in the year-ago quarter.   

“Overall, we have seen increased consumer willingness to get back into stores, as consumer behaviour in response to the Covid-19 pandemic changes,” said Nick Vlahos, chief executive.

Alba launched Honest Company in 2011 and quickly saw sales increase. But in 2015 and 2016, the company was plagued with lawsuits that alleged some of its products contained synthetic and toxic ingredients, and paid out almost $10m to consumers in court settlements.

The company raised $413m and was valued at more than $1.4bn in its IPO.

“As we look to the future, we will continue to use consumer insights to drive our focus on current and future trends in self-care, clean beauty, and skincare as well as our key product categories of diapers and wipes, household and wellness,” Alba said in a statement.

More than 175m Americans have received at least one Covid-19 shot as the rate of vaccinations in the US reached its highest level in two weeks.

Data published on Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also showed that 146.5m people in the country have completed the vaccination regimen since the rollout began in December.

The pace of the US vaccination drive has accelerated in the last week and a half. The US has administered 1.17m doses per day over the last week, compared to a recent low of about 938,000.

Still, vaccinations have slowed from their peak seven-day average of 3.4m per day in April, putting in jeopardy the Biden administration’s goal of administering at least one jab to 70 per cent of all adults by the Fourth of July.

Almost 65 per cent of the adult population has received a shot, and 55 per cent of the 18-and-over group is fully vaccinated.

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have surpassed the 70 per cent threshold, while Illinois and Virginia are within one percentage point of hitting the mark.

German pharmaceutical company CureVac revealed disappointing results from trials of its Covid-19 vaccine, damping hopes that it could join the race to immunise the world.

CureVac said its jab was 47 per cent effective at protecting against coronavirus in interim analysis of its late-stage trials. The company said it would continue trials of its two-dose mRNA vaccine as new Covid-19 cases among volunteers are monitored.

CureVac’s shares plunged 50 per cent in after-market trading.

The data places CureVac’s jab among the least effective coronavirus vaccines tested so far across the world. Earlier this week, US drugmaker Novavax said its protein-based shot was 90 per cent effective at combating coronavirus.

Last week I participated in a ritual that used to feel commonplace but now presents a shock: entering a television studio to give a live interview. The prompt was the meeting of G7 leaders in Cornwall and the fact that I recently published a book, with its inevitable tour.

Pre-Covid, this type of promotion entailed a well-defined set of ceremonies: popping into TV studios, sipping warm wine at launch parties, putting in appearances at bookshops and pontificating on conference platforms. The process required a lot of all-too-physical travel.

Now, however, a book tour is largely conducted from the safety — or hell — of a spare room via video platforms, after some hastily applied smudges of make-up. It starts with a few clicks of a mouse and can be accomplished minutes after rolling out of bed. (Depending on the timezone, this occasionally happens.)

Last weekend I was bracing myself for another Skype call, with a morning chat show on America’s MSNBC network. But then I learnt that the studio was opening for “real life”, since Covid-19 rates in Manhattan are now so low and the vaccination rates so high. (This week, New York state hit the 70 per cent vaccination rate and fireworks were set off to celebrate.) Cue a scramble to find vaguely smart trousers in my wardrobe, after a year of worrying only about the state of my shirts.

It was an instructive experience, not least because echoes of this adjustment are being felt by anyone now returning to the office. My first reaction, as I raced to the studio, was to feel startled and irritated by how time-consuming physical experiences can be compared with ones taking place in cyberspace. Going to a TV studio entails travel, navigating security at the entrance and hanging around for hours in a green room.

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Getting vaccinated “didn’t hurt at all”, said the Queen. UK health secretary Matt Hancock “could barely feel it”. Yet widespread “injection phobia” may explain why some people have yet to come forward for their coronavirus jabs, a study has found.

Of the more than 15,000 adults quizzed by researchers at the University of Oxford earlier this year, a quarter said they were scared of needles. Those who did were twice as likely to report being vaccine hesitant, meaning they would either put off getting vaccinated against Covid-19 or never get the  jab.

“People who are vaccine hesitant cite concern about the safety of the vaccines and scepticism about the seriousness of Covid-19,” the researchers said. “What the survey makes clear now, however, is that fear of the needle may also be playing a part.”

The study indicated that tending to the country’s “needle fears” could reduce Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy rates by 10 per cent.

Helen McShane, professor of vaccinology at Oxford, said “understanding the underlying causes of [injection phobia] helps us address specific interventions that ultimately will increase vaccine uptake”.

Federal Reserve officials expect to start raising interest rates in 2023, earlier than previously forecast, according to new economic projections that predicted faster growth and sharply higher inflation this year.

At the end of its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, the US central bank kept its main interest rate on hold at the rock-bottom range of 0 to 0.25 per cent, where it has stood since the start of the pandemic.

But whereas in March, when most Fed officials predicted that current rates would be maintained until at least 2024, the consensus has shifted towards an earlier lift-off in 2023, signalling the central bank’s belief in a faster transition to a full recovery and tighter monetary policy.

The Fed’s new set of economic projections now has the median Federal Open Market Committee participant forecasting gross domestic product growth of 7 per cent this year, compared to 6.5 per cent in March, with the unemployment rate dropping to 4.5 per cent, in line with its earlier predictions. Core inflation is expected to be 3 per cent this year, sharply higher than the 2.2 per cent expected in March, before falling back to 2.1 per cent in 2022.

“Progress on vaccinations has reduced the spread of Covid-19 in the United States,” the FOMC said. “Amid this progress and strong policy support, indicators of economic activity and employment have strengthened. The sectors most adversely affected by the pandemic remain weak but have shown improvement.”

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International cruise line Royal Caribbean has pushed back its inaugural sailing of its Odyssey of the Seas ship after eight crew members received positive Covid-19 test results.

The crew members, six of whom are not showing symptoms and two who have mild symptoms, are in quarantine and are being monitored by the company’s medical team, said chief executive Michael Bayley in a statement on Tuesday evening. The rest of the crew will be quarantined for two weeks and will be routinely tested for the virus.

“Two steps forward and one step back,” Bayley said in a Facebook post.

All 1,400 Odyssey crew members were vaccinated on June 4 and “will be considered fully vaccinated” on June 18.

“The positive cases were identified after the vaccination was given and before they were fully effective,” Bayley said.

The Odyssey is postponing its travels from July 3 to July 31. Its simulation cruise, which was scheduled for the end of June, will also be rescheduled, Bayley said in his statement.  

On Monday, Royal Caribbean issued its international vaccine policy for travellers. For cruise ships leaving from all US ports, except for Florida, the cruise line requires people over 16 to be fully vaccinated and from August 1 all guests over 12 must also be fully vaccinated. Travellers under those age requirements can board ships with a negative Covid-19 test result and will have to follow certain protocols.

To sail from the UK, Cyprus, Spain and Italy, travellers over 18 must be fully vaccinated and those under the age of 18 need to show negative test results. For ships departing from the Bahamas, people over 16 must be fully vaccinated and from August 1 all guests over 12 must also be vaccinated. Travellers leaving from Singapore are not required to be vaccinated but must follow protocols issued by the Singapore government.

The EU is to recommend its member states let in US tourists for the first time in more than a year, as infection rates fall there and tourist-dependent European countries seek to capitalise on the summer season.

EU nations on Wednesday decided to add the US to a short list of “safe” countries from which non-essential travel is permitted, even though Washington has yet to lift its equivalent ban on visitors from the European bloc.

The EU move, which is due to be formally approved by ministers on Friday, comes after some bloc countries have already started to let in US travellers on non-essential business.

Albania, Lebanon, North Macedonia, Serbia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau will also be added to the “safe list”, diplomats said. The list currently comprises of Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.

The fresh diplomatic approach from the Biden administration has led to hopes of a strengthened transatlantic relationship. President Joe Biden claimed that the “US is back” at the G7 meeting in Cornwall on Sunday.

In April 2020, as coronavirus spread around the world, Monique Roffey published her seventh book.

She went with UK-based Peepal Tree Press, a small Caribbean-focused independent company, to publish The Mermaid of Black Conch after the majors rejected her fantastical tale of a mermaid from another era.

“Indie published me in the eye of the storm,” Roffey says. “I did everything I could to get it noticed.”

The Trinidad-born author crowdfunded £4,500 for a publicist for her novel but as the healthcare crisis took hold she feared her mermaid tale would slide by unnoticed.

She was struggling to pay the rent while book tours and festivals were cancelled because of coronavirus. “Covid was potentially disastrous for my book,” she says. “It was in danger of falling into the Covid chasm.”

But then the lyrical tale of loneliness, love and otherness caught the attention of the literary world and judges applauded it. In January, the novel won the prestigious £30,000 Costa book award, with judges calling it “extraordinary”, “captivating” and “full of mythic energy and unforgettable characters”.

And, bingo, suddenly everyone wanted to read about the mermaid Aycayia, says Roffey, who (full disclosure) attended the same school in the outskirts of Port-of-Spain as I did. 

The story has sold about 60,000 copies in print and online and this month it is published in paperback format by Vintage. For two consecutive weeks this year the novel topped The Times bestseller list. Film rights could well be next.

“Against all the odds, I have done well during Covid,” Roffey says from her home in London. “In 20 years of writing, with many ups and downs, I have seen nothing quite like this.”

Her novel of fantasy and folklore tapped into a desire for reading and imagination during the dark days of coronavirus-induced lockdowns. Roffey joined many authors pivoting online with book launches and literary festivals, which meant she gained global readers.

“In 2020, the nation turned to books for comfort, escapism and relaxation,” says the Publishers Association, the UK’s trade organisation that serves book and journal publishers. “Reading triumphed, with adults and children alike reading more during lockdown than before.”  

Income from fiction rose 16 per cent last year to £688m, while the total for consumer publications rose 7 per cent in the UK to £2.1bn, the UK trade body says. 

“Basically a book, which was roundly ignored, rejected, published in the first Covid wave and that nobody registered,” was relaunched, Roffey says.

From nobody wanting the book, suddenly billboards of its cover are cropping up around town, she adds.

This is the sixth article in a series for the blog that explores the effects of the pandemic on people and businesses around the world

The rate of US new home construction rose in May, despite permits to build new homes falling more than expected as homebuilders battle a shortage of construction materials and labour.

Privately owned housing starts increased 3.6 per cent month on month during May to an annualised rate of 1.57m units, below the consensus of 1.63m, the commerce department said on Wednesday. This follows a revised 12.1 per cent drop in April.

Building permits, a forward looking gauge of housing activity, dropped 3 per cent from April to an annualised rate of 1.68m units last month, also below consensus of 1.73m.

The past two months have affected builders’ ability to start new projects because of the uncertainties around the price and availability of lumber and other building materials, said Zillow economist Matthew Speakman in an analyst note.

Still, Speakman said, while “builder confidence has come down from the historic highs hit in late 2020, it remains elevated as shoppers continue to snap up newly constructed homes at a record pace.”

“Slowing housing activity will no doubt fuel the peak growth narrative. But the key question that has to be asked is whether the recent weakness is driven by demand, or supply constraints,” said Aneta Markowska, economist at Jefferies.

“Evidence overwhelmingly points to the latter,” she said, adding that while shortages could last for another six months “improving supply creates upside for 2022 growth”.

Global stocks inched higher ahead of the conclusion of the US central bank’s two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, which will give investors a glimpse of how officials view the inflation outlook.

The S&P 500 was flat in early dealings, but the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite rose 0.3 per cent. Across the Atlantic, the European Stoxx 600 index was up 0.2 per cent and the UK’s FTSE 100 climbed by the same amount.

Top movers in the US included several energy companies such as Diamondback Energy, ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum and Halliburton, as demand for oil remained high after the lifting of pandemic curbs.

Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up 0.6 per cent to $74.46 a barrel, its highest level since April 2019. The US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, was up 0.2 per cent at $72.26 a barrel, its strongest level since October 2018.

“The general feeling is that it’s probably too good to be true,” said Luca Paolini, chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management, referring to stocks on both sides of the Atlantic holding on to record highs. “But as long as the global economy continues to do well, the market will continue to go higher.”

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The coronavirus pandemic has been catastrophic for the hospitality industry and the delay to the June 21 unlocking in England has led to more uncertainty. The FT’s Daniel Garrahan and food critic Tim Hayward meet Harts Group, the business behind Soho institution Quo Vadis and tapas chain Barrafina, as it opens a new Soho branch of its El Pastor taquerias.

The US government has bought 200m more doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in a fresh sign that governments are betting on the need for booster jabs in order to keep the virus under control.

Including the latest order, the US has purchased a total of 500m doses of Moderna’s vaccine, with 110m doses expected to be delivered by the fourth quarter of this year and 90m to be delivered in the first quarter of 2022.

The US, which has a large stockpile of vaccines compared to its adult population, may use the mRNA doses to immunise children or as booster shots in the months ahead.

The agreement also enables Washington to purchase doses of any new coronavirus vaccines made by Moderna.

The drugmaker is currently trialling variant booster shots, which target strains of the virus including the Beta and Gamma variants first identified in South Africa and Brazil, respectively.

France will lift its 11pm curfew on Sunday, nine days earlier than anticipated, as the number of Covid-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths continues to fall across the country.

The requirement to wear masks outdoors will also be lifted from Thursday except for in specific settings, such as gatherings, crowded places or stadiums, French prime minister Jean Castex said at a televised press conference on Wednesday afternoon. Masks will still be obligatory indoors, in stores and offices.

The decision was made to relax these restrictions because the health situation “is improving faster than we had hoped”, Castex said, adding that pressure on the hospital system has decreased considerably.

At the same time, he urged people to continue to get vaccinated and set a new target to fully vaccinate 35m people by the end of August, up from 15.7m currently.

“We must stay vigilant in the coming weeks,” Castex said.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson referred to the inability of his health secretary, Matt Hancock, to increase coronavirus testing capacity at the start of the pandemic as “totally fucking hopeless”, according to private messages leaked by Johnson’s former top adviser.

Dominic Cummings released the damaging WhatsApp messages on his Twitter feed. They show that Johnson considered sacking Hancock, with a message from Johnson on April 27 2020 revealing that he thought provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) had been “a disaster”.

Johnson added in the message: “I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting [Michael] Gove on.”

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UK house price growth slowed unexpectedly in April, suggesting property prices are at risk of softening even as a boom fuelled by a temporary stamp duty cut on transactions turbocharges the market.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday showed average prices increased 8.9 per cent in the year to April, a slowdown from 9.9 per cent in March. Economists had expected growth to accelerate to 12.2 per cent.

Compared with March, average house prices on a seasonally-adjusted basis fell 2.2 per cent to stand at £250,772.

The UK Price House Index figures from the ONS are less up-to-date than other indicators, but provide a fuller picture of final transactions.

Samuel Tombs, chief economist at Pantheon Economics, said the loss of momentum could indicate a coming lull.

He said forthcoming reductions in household spending power because of rising inflation and a fall in prices after the stamp duty holiday was lifted in Scotland suggested an “impending hit” to growth in prices in England.

“We expect house prices to give back some of their recent gains towards the end of this year,” Tombs added.

Still, Nick Barnes, head of research at estate agent Chesterton’s, said levels of inquiries and sales were indicative of continued “strong demand”.

Jeremy Leaf, former residential chair of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, said market activity was likely to continue at similar levels, with increasing sales resulting in “some price softening rather than a correction”.

The coronavirus reproduction number — the average number of new cases generated by an infected individual — could jump to as high as 7 in England if all restrictions are removed, a public health expert has warned.

The R number is currently between 1.2 and 1.4, the Office for National Statistics said last week, suggesting that every 10 people infected will infect between 12 and 14 others.

Susan Hopkins, deputy director at Public Health England’s National Infection Service, said on Wednesday that the figure would rise substantially if all restrictions and social distancing measures were removed.

In such circumstances, and without the protection conferred to millions across the country by vaccines, “we would estimate that R was greater than 5 and maybe up to 7”, she told a parliamentary select committee. This would mean every 10 people infected would, on average, go on to infect up to 70 others.

The Delta variant, which became dominant across England in May, is thought to be at least 40 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which in turn was more transmissible than those that came before, including the original Wuhan strain.

Before restrictions were imposed early last year, the R number was thought to be “around 2.5”, said Hopkins.

The UK Treasury is to extend a ban on commercial evictions until next March, giving hard hit businesses further protection from landlords as the pandemic drags on.

British retailers and other commercial tenants have so far delayed payment of £6bn worth of rent during the crisis, as the public was ordered to stay at home for three separate lockdowns.

The scheduled end to the eviction moratorium prompted fears that landlords would pursue legal action to claim unpaid rents, leading to the closure of thousands of businesses.

But Whitehall figures said Steve Barclay, chief secretary to the Treasury, was due to announce on Wednesday afternoon that the ban is to be extended for a further nine months.

Debts accumulated during the crisis would initially be “ringfenced” and the arrears would go through a new arbitration mechanism to help tenants and landlords resolve disputes over payment.

Barclay is also expected to announce a further extension, through the summer, of a separate ban on “winding-up petitions” under which struggling companies are forced to file for insolvency.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of trade body UKHospitality, said that, if confirmed, the “measures will banish a grim shadow that has hung menacingly over hospitality since the Covid crisis began”.

However, Melanie Leech, chief executive of the British Property Federation, which represents landlords, said well-capitalised companies were “exploiting” the eviction ban.

She urged ministers to make it clear that “those who do not now pay will be penalised”.

Moscow is making coronavirus vaccination compulsory for broad swaths of the city’s population as Russia struggles with soaring Covid-19 cases and a slow uptake for its three domestically produced vaccines.

Health officials said on Wednesday that employers in most industries would be obliged to fully vaccinate at least 60 per cent of their staff by August 15.

The move marks an admission that Russia’s vaccination campaign has failed to take off. Only about 14m of the 145m population has been fully inoculated against the virus.

Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor, said that only 1.8m of the 20m people who live in the capital and its suburbs had taken the two-shot jab, which he said risked “the death of thousands of Muscovites” if vaccination rates did not pick up.

“It’s up to you . . . as long as you’re sitting at home or at your dacha. But when you visit public places and make contact with other people, you become part of the epidemiological process, whether you like it or not,” Sobyanin wrote on his blog.

“Moreover, if you work in an organisation that services an unspecified number of people, then in an epidemic it’s certainly not up to you, regardless of what protection you use.”

The decree applies to the service industry, beauty salons, restaurants and bars, bank branches, culture, sports and public transport, as well as civil servants, municipal employees, teachers, and healthcare and social workers.

Moscow’s move codifies a marked shift from Russia’s claims that it had weathered the pandemic better than most other countries.

President Vladimir Putin said in late May that compulsory vaccination would be “impractical and impossible”, then said that life was “gradually returning to normal” even as “half of the world is staying at home”.

Amid lax enforcement of mask restrictions, light lockdown measures, and a lack of public trust in Russia’s vaccines, however, cases have soared in recent weeks to their highest level since the second wave last winter.

Russia recorded 13,397 cases on Wednesday. Nearly 7,000 of those came from Moscow and its suburbs.

Despite the recent rise, which heath officials have blamed on the Delta variant of the virus that originated in India, a majority of Russians have no intention of getting vaccinated, according to polls.

Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, told reporters Russia had no plan to make vaccination compulsory nationwide. The Kremlin also sought to distance Putin from unpopular lockdown measures last year, leaving local officials such as Sobyanin to take the lead in imposing the restrictions.

Disabled people are at a higher risk of Covid-19 related death than non-disabled people, according to preliminary research from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Office for National Statistics.

The study, which is not yet peer-reviewed, used data from the ONS, which includes 29m adults aged 30-100 years old. 

LSHTM said 17 per cent were disabled, including 7 per cent who self-reported as “more-disabled” and 10 per cent who defined themselves as “less-disabled”.

More-disabled people were three times more likely to die from coronavirus than non-disabled people. For less-disabled people, the risk was almost twice as high than non-disabled people.

Researchers said disabled people accounted for 58 per cent of the 105,213 deaths involving Covid-19 that occurred in England in the 13 months to February.

The increased risk of mortality was partly explained by differences in living circumstances and pre-existing health conditions. 

“These tragic figures demonstrate the urgent need to put disabled people front and centre of the response to the pandemic, and support for themselves and their families must be prioritised,” said Hannah Kuper, director of the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at LSHTM.

Indian health officials are seeking to calm fears that the Delta variant of Sars-CoV-2 now circulating widely in the country has a greater impact on children than the original virus strain.

As India was hit by a devastating Covid wave in recent months, local media reports suggested that more young children were testing positive and falling ill, fanning anxiety that children were more vulnerable.

But health ministry officials have now released data showing young children accounted for a similar proportion of total confirmed infections in the second wave as in the first wave.

Of the total confirmed infections between July 1 and Dec 31, children under age ten accounted for 3.2 per cent of cases. In the second wave — from March 15 to May 25 — they accounted for a marginally lower 3.05 per cent.

Children and young adults between the ages of 11 and 20 were 8 per cent of confirmed infections in the first wave, and 8.5 per cent in the second wave, the ministry data showed.

The perception of more children getting infected reflected the far higher number of infections overall during the second wave, Indian health officials have said.

Most Indian schools have been closed since March 2020, taking a huge emotional and educational toll on children, especially those from poorer families enrolled in government schools who have struggled with online education.

India has yet to approve any vaccine for children.

The pandemic has accelerated the decline of cash, with the volume of UK payments made using notes and coins plunging by 35 per cent in 2020 compared with the previous year.

Annual payments data from UK Finance, the banking trade body, showed a corresponding rise in contactless payments, online transactions and the use of mobile “wallet” apps that store bank and card details. But the banking trade body said it was “too early to say” if this would be a permanent change in consumer behaviour.

Since 2017, cash use has been declining by about 15 per cent per year, so the latest figures represent a significant acceleration. During the pandemic, shoppers have been encouraged to “tap and pay” to reduce contact owing to fears about the virus being transmitted via notes and coins.

Many businesses no longer accept cash, even though it remains the second most frequently used payment method in the UK, accounting for just under one-fifth of total payments.

Campaigners are urging retailers and businesses to start accepting notes and coins again as restrictions ease.

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Shares in Made.com fell 3 per cent on Wednesday after the company priced them at 200p in its initial public offering, giving the online furniture retailer a market capitalisation of £775m.

The listing follows the debuts in London of online greeting card group Moonpig and vintners Virgin Wines, which have accelerated sales thanks to stay-at-home consumers buying online during the coronavirus pandemic. Both those groups’ shares remain well ahead of their IPO prices.

Made.com sold 50m new shares in the IPO on Wednesday, raising £100m, while existing investors sold 46.9m shares. A further 14.5m shares could be made available as part of the overallotment option. If exercised, that would increase the number of shares to 111.5m and 29 per cent of the issued share capital.

The shares traded conditionally in London on Wednesday, while full dealings will begin on Monday.

The homewares group aims to quadruple annual sales to £1.2bn by the end of 2025. The company has said it plans to invest proceeds from the IPO in marketing and supply chain improvements aimed at reducing the time between customer orders being placed and goods being delivered.

Compulsory coronavirus vaccines for England’s care home staff threaten to scare off new applicants and deepen the sector’s staffing crisis, an industry representative has warned.

Care home staff will be at risk of losing their jobs if they have not been vaccinated within 16 weeks under government plans for mandatory vaccines, the Guardian reported.

Mike Padgham, chair of the Independent Care Group, said on Wednesday that such a policy risked putting off would-be workers from joining the sector, just as it faces a shortage of about 120,000 staff.

“I’m disappointed it’s going to be made compulsory because I think persuasion rather than compulsion or coercion is the way forward,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Staffing is our biggest problem [and] this isn’t going to help.”

Although he wanted all care home staff to be vaccinated, Padgham said many had “religious or cultural reasons” for not doing so. Care homes might be hit with legal action for unfair dismissals, he added.

“It feels like we’re fighting two battles,” he said. “Covid-19, which is the critical bit, but also the government . . . who don’t seem to understand social care.”

UK home furnishings retailer ScS said that performance in the 2021 financial year is likely to be ahead of market expectations, as a new website and the reopening of stores after lockdown have boosted sales.

In a trading update on Wednesday, ScS said its order book totalled £116.6m by June 12. This was £39m larger the order book at the same point in the previous year.

The company’s online order intake increased by 95.3 per cent when compared with the same period in the prior year.

ScS also said the outlook for its 2022 financial year was substantially better than current market forecasts.

“The board is encouraged by the Group’s strong trading performance since reopening,” ScS said in a statement.

“Whilst some uncertainty persists relating to the end to all Covid restrictions, the board believes the Group is well positioned to maximise opportunities for growth,” the retailer added. 

Regeneron’s antibody cocktail significantly reduces the risk of death among hospitalised Covid-19 patients whose own immune systems have failed to fight the virus, a large UK clinical trial has shown.

A combination of two antibodies called Regen-Cov, made by the US-based biotech company, cuts mortality by one-fifth among patients who did not mount an antibody response of their own, the Recovery study run by Oxford university found.

“It is the first time that any viral treatment has been shown to save lives in hospitalised Covid-19 patients,” said Martin Landray, Recovery’s joint chief investigator.

The findings, to be released later on Wednesday in a preprint paper, will provide a further boost for Regen-Cov, which is already well ahead of the competition in the corporate race to commercialise antiviral antibody treatments for Covid.

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Kim Jong Un has issued a new warning of food shortages in North Korea, as the dictator urged the country’s top political officials to improve agricultural production.

Kim told top cadres “the people’s food situation is now getting tense as the agricultural sector failed to fulfil its grain production plan due to the damage by typhoon last year”, according to comments reported by North Korean state media on Wednesday. Kim also warned of a “prolonged emergency anti-epidemic situation”.

The leader’s comments, which came as he presided over the ruling Workers’ Party central committee in Pyongyang, is the latest evidence of stress hitting the North Korean economy, which has struggled for almost 18 months with pandemic-linked border closures, crippling economic sanctions and a series of typhoons and floods last year.  

Since the onset of the pandemic, North Korea has cut itself off from the outside world. While shipments from China, the country’s main trading partner, have continued at a much reduced pace — likely imports of food, fertiliser and fuel — most cross-border trading activity has declined sharply or stopped completely.

The NHS will begin to call up 21- and 22-year-olds, about 1m people, to receive a coronavirus vaccine as the UK’s immunisation programme enters its final phase.

The national booking system will send about 972,000 texts out on Wednesday to allow young people to make appointments for both doses.

The final cohort of 18- to 20-year-olds are expected to receive the call by the end of the week.

Figures released this week show the NHS in England has delivered more than 60m jabs to protect the adult population against Covid-19 since the campaign began in December.

“It’s really important everybody in the latest eligible groups books themselves in to get their jab and plays their part in this huge national effort,” said Emily Lawson, who leads the NHS Covid vaccination programme.

More than 1m appointments were booked by people in their 20s on one day last week, demonstrating the enthusiasm of younger adults to be vaccinated, the NHS said.

UK inflation jumped again last month, overshooting economists’ expectations and the Bank of England target as the gradual reopening from lockdown drove up prices in clothing, fuel and meals and drinks in restaurants and bars.

The price of consumer goods increased 2.1 per cent in the year to May, from 1.5 per cent in April, figures released by the Office for National Statistics showed on Wednesday. The consensus expectation was 1.8 per cent.

Economists are monitoring price rises, with the inflation rate falling to as low as 0.2 per cent last summer but rising rapidly as the economy has opened up.

Expected increases in petrol and electricity prices meant the consumer price index doubled in April, in keeping with economists expectations for it to pass the BoE’s target of 2 per cent by the end of the year.

The increase in May was more surprising, however, and may increase pressure on the bank to act to curb price rises.

Goldman Sachs bankers were called back to their desks this week, but the return to the office came with a twist. The bank offered free food to staff at its 200 West Street headquarters in New York and staged afternoon concerts to buoy morale.

Despite the bonhomie, there was no disguising the fact that Goldman has led the pack in demanding its staff return to the office, a stance that chimes with its reputation as one of the more hard-nosed operators on Wall Street.

Bankers at other lenders, including Barclays, will also start trickling back to the office this month. But the pace at which employees are expected to return varies significantly depending on the lender and its location, according to a Financial Times analysis of 20 global banks based on internal memos, responses from spokespeople and others briefed on their plans.

Among the laggards is HSBC, which has yet to set a date for its bankers to return, and which plans to substantially reduce its office footprint by adopting a much more flexible approach to office working.

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India’s spectacular Taj Mahal and other national monuments have reopened today, with authorities continuing to ease restrictions as the country’s devastating second wave of Covid-19 recedes.

India reported about 62,000 new infections on Tuesday, down from more than 414,000 at the peak of the wave in early May. States also reported another 2,500 deaths, pushing India’s official pandemic death toll to more nearly 380,000, though epidemiologists believe the true number to be many multiples higher.

As the numbers of active infections and daily new infections have declined, authorities have moved swiftly to restart economic activities, permitting shopping malls, restaurants and markets to reopen.

The Archeological Survey of India is reopening the Taj Mahal, in the city of Agra, and other protected sites that include the Red Fort and the Qutub Minar in New Delhi and the Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra state, as well as many museums, after a closure of more than two months.

But the huge crowds that flocked to malls and markets across India earlier this week have alarmed public health experts, who have warned that failure to follow Covid-19 protocols such as masking and social distancing could lead to a massive third wave.

“The next wave could be worse than the second wave situation,” Suranjit Chaterjee, a senior doctor at the private Apollo Hospitals, told the Press Trust of India.

India’s drive to vaccinate its population of 1.37bn had administered around 252m doses as of Monday. That accounts for just 18 doses per 100 residents of the country, with just 3.5 per cent of Indians now fully vaccinated. Another 15 per cent have so far received one dose.

Nearly half of first-time buyers last year delayed plans to buy a home, after this group was hit harder financially than other types of UK buyer in the pandemic, new research found. 

Some 44 per cent of first-time buyers put their plans to buy on hold in 2020, as the public health crisis dealt them a double blow of rising house prices and constrained personal finances. 

The research by Santander, the high street lender, which questioned 12,000 adults in the first three months of 2021, found that 31 per cent of buyers of all types had saved more money during the pandemic, at a time when opportunities to spend were curtailed by lockdown restrictions. However, among first-time buyers, the figure was just 17 per cent. 

Younger buyers felt the effects of unemployment and reduced income more harshly during Covid-19, while many continued to grapple with the cost of renting, the report said. 

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Brussels is set to sign off the first of the national recovery plans it hopes will revive Europe’s pandemic-battered economy, with officials poised to give the green light on Wednesday to historic spending proposals by Spain and Portugal.

The €800bn Next Generation EU fund, agreed last year, is a bet that large-scale spending on priorities such as energy transition and digitalisation can prevent the bloc from repeating the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, when its recovery lagged behind that of the US.

The programme’s fate will be decided largely by the performance of big beneficiaries such as Spain, which last year suffered the steepest slump because of the Covid-19 crisis. Spain’s economy contracted 10.8 per cent in 2020 and it is slated to receive about €70bn in grants and €70bn in loans over the 2021-2026 lifetime of the plan. Portugal anticipates gaining access to €14bn in grants and €2.6bn in loans.

Italy will be the biggest beneficiary of the Next Generation fund, with €191.5bn of loans and grants expected to be signed off by the European Commission in the coming days. 

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Business gloom has been so pervasive in Mexico since Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the presidency in 2018 on a strident anti-establishment platform that a recent burst of optimism about the country’s growth prospects feels like a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds.

Last October, the IMF was forecasting that Mexico would grow just 3.5 per cent in 2021 after shrinking a seasonally adjusted 8.5 per cent last year during the pandemic. Yet as the economy rapidly opens up, coronavirus infections remain low and the effects of the giant US stimulus ripple across the border, many economists and bankers here now see Mexico expanding almost twice as fast. 

“The combination of continued reopening with strong remittances and a US-led global recovery has allowed Mexico to close the gap with other Latin American economies, outperforming all of them in the first half of 2021,” said Marcos Casarín, chief economist for the region at Oxford Economics. The consultancy’s recovery tracker shows Mexico is returning to pre-pandemic levels of activity more quickly than any other Latin American country.

“Mexico will grow 6.0 per cent this year and it could be higher,” said former finance minister and academic Carlos Urzúa, citing the spillover effects of US fiscal stimulus and increased remittances from Mexicans working across the border. These could reach $55bn this year and are “much more important than oil”, he added.

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For David Leitch, the job of general counsel at Bank of America was a busy enough job before the Covid-19 pandemic. But, almost overnight, Leitch and his team had to grapple with the legal practicalities of most of the bank’s 200,000-plus workforce working remotely. 

“The things that we were doing before Covid are overwhelmed by the experience of the past 15 months,” says Leitch. “Many times I’ve asked myself: ‘What were we doing before we were managing this crisis?’” 

Early on in the pandemic, Bank of America had to address a host of legal questions, including what home-working employees were allowed to do and how records must be kept, all while collaborating with human resources on support programmes. These included offering staff $100 per day for in-home child care. 

The bank — the second-biggest in the US by assets — also helped arrange for 343,000 loans under the US government-backed Paycheck Protection Program, designed to help cover jeopardised payrolls at struggling small businesses. At the same time, the bank worked on deals for large corporate clients that raised a total of $772bn in capital.

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Cambodia’s economy is gradually recovering from the pandemic and projected to grow 4 per cent in 2021, according to a World Bank report released Wednesday.

The south-east Asian country’s economy contracted by 3.1 per cent in 2020, the World Bank said in a statement, despite its Covid-19 infection numbers remaining low throughout that year.

The latest issue of the World Bank’s bi-annual economic update for Cambodia says recovery is uneven and volatile, however, due in part to the recent reintroduction of lockdowns to control the spread of Covid-19.

While some sectors have seen economic gains, others continue to be stifled, the report says.

Agriculture has been relatively resilient due to strong demand boosted in part by a new free trade agreement with China, while manufacturing and retail are also experiencing slow revivals. Hospitality, F&B and transportation, however, continue to be hit hard by the slowdown in domestic and international tourism.

“Like many countries in the region, Cambodia has been hit hard by the global demand shock brought on by Covid-19. But the good news is that Cambodia has now vaccinated more than 3m people, one of the highest rates in the region,” said Inguna Dobraja, World Bank country manager for Cambodia. 

The Tokyo Olympics will need a public bailout of about $800m if the games are held behind closed doors as organisers delay a decision on domestic spectators to the last possible moment.

Recent budgets show the Tokyo 2020 organisers are still assuming full stadiums. Having already spent the billions of yen raised from ticket sales, a new subsidy from taxpayers would be the only way to finance refunds, according to a Financial Times analysis of organising committee accounts.

With Japan’s government determined to press ahead and hold the games from July 23, the decision whether to allow local fans into the stadiums has become one of the biggest controversies around the Olympics.

Speaking at the G7 summit in Cornwall, Yoshihide Suga, the prime minister, signalled Japan was determined to allow spectators if it could. “Taking into account the level of Covid-19 infections, we’ll decide [on capacity] in accordance with the numbers allowed at other sporting events,” he said.

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Domestic workers have been among the hardest hit by the global pandemic, the UN labour agency said on Tuesday.

“These workers lost their jobs in greater numbers or saw their hours of work reduced to a greater extent than other parts of the workforce,” Guy Ryder, the International Labour Organization’s director-general, said.

According to ILO data, the number of domestic workers fell by 25 to 50 per cent in most Latin American and Caribbean countries in the second quarter of 2020 when compared with pre-pandemic levels. Most European countries, as well as Canada and South Africa, saw job shedding among domestic workers range from 5 to 20 per cent.

The ILO chief added that eight in 10 domestic workers are informally employed and therefore lack legal and welfare protection. “Their status inside the country can be called into question if they lose their jobs [and] many domestic workers live in with their employees, so they could lose their lodgings if they lose their jobs as well,” Ryder said.

“So, behind the aggregated numbers there is a sort of deeper human impact which accentuates even more the suffering involved in the latent economic impact of the Covid pandemic.”

In Brazil, which is the second highest employer of domestic workers in the world, almost seven in 10 employees work informally — double the national average, the ILO said in a statement. Fewer than 40 per cent of domestic workers had effective access to social security when the pandemic hit.

According to ILO, there are at least 75.6m domestic workers aged 15 and over globally. Just over three-quarters are women.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday that the observatory of the Empire State Building would open as a Covid-19 vaccination site.

“Our vaccination effort is reaching new heights,” de Blasio said of the initiative, which will commence on the 80th floor of the New York City landmark on Friday.

People aged 12 and over can receive their first dose of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine some 380 metres above Manhattan from 8am to noon on three consecutive weekends: June 18-20, June 25-27 and July 2-4. Second-dose appointments will be made on-site.

“It’s the summer of New York City’s recovery thanks to our lifesaving vaccines and legendary landmarks,” de Blasio said. “Now you can head to the Empire State Building to get vaccinated and make memories you’ll never forget.”

Sponsors wary of domestic backlash over the safety of Games amid Covid-19 pandemic.

In 1964, the world watched the Tokyo Olympics via the first ever worldwide satellite broadcast using a gigantic antenna developed by NEC. In the Tokyo Olympics starting this July, NEC will once again be deploying new technology. 

The company’s facial recognition system will be installed at stadiums to identify athletes and staff as the government pushes ahead with what it has promised will be a “safe and secure” Games despite the Covid-19 pandemic. 

But there will probably be little promotion by NEC or other Olympic sponsors of technology used in the Games this summer, whether it is related to Toyota’s self-driving vehicles or security robots developed by Secom. 

As one sponsor grimly acknowledged, silence is the best marketing strategy to navigate a toxic environment where any association with the event could potentially be damaging for the corporate brand.

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Small businesses in the UK attracted a record amount of equity during the pandemic as tech-focused companies prospered and others were helped by a government Covid emergency fundraising scheme.  

Equity investment in smaller UK businesses reached a record £8.8bn last year — an increase of 9 per cent — and continued into the first three months of 2021 when a further £4.5bn was raised. This was the highest amount ever recorded in a single quarter, according to a report by the state-owned British Business Bank (BBB). 

The figures highlight the bifurcation in Britain’s small-business economy. Thousands of small companies struggled during the lockdown, forced to close or unable to trade fully in sectors such as hospitality, retailing and travel.  

But others in ecommerce and digital services benefited as demand for their services increased, with the majority of the population forced to stay at home. These attracted record levels of cash from investors sitting on large pools of unspent funds. Nearly half of total equity investment into UK smaller businesses was in the tech sector, according to the BBB.

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Business travel in the US will not recover until 2024 at the earliest because of “a patchwork approach to reopening” and “lingering restrictions”, the US Travel Association said on Tuesday.

Travel spending on large, in-person professional gatherings fell by 76 per cent last year — a loss of about $97bn — as businesses embraced remote working and cut travel in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus. And only about a third of businesses have resumed work-related travel.

“One of the major factors in the slow return of [professional meetings and events] is the uneven patchwork of guidance that currently governs large gatherings from jurisdiction to jurisdiction nationwide,” the industry trade group said in a statement.

It called for “the adoption of federal guidance” on professional meetings and events that is “clear and consistent”.

Robert Isom, president of American Airlines, said at a conference last week that business travel is returning, albeit slowly, and that 47 of its 50 biggest corporate accounts have announced a full return to travel by the end of 2021.

“There are a lot of companies that need to go back out, whether it’s from a sales perspective or just checking up on assets that are out in the field that has to happen,” he said. “And so, when things open up, when offices open up, business is, in my view, is returning in a proportional share. So, as we take a look at out to the future, it really is tied to vaccination rates, offices opening, and then ultimately business can get back to it.”

Nearly seven in 10 Americans have indicated their employer will permit them to travel in the next three to six months, according to a survey of 2,140 adults conducted between May 11 and 17 by aviation analytics company Cirium.

The Covid-19 virus infected people across five states in the US weeks before the first official cases were reported in those places, a new study has revealed.

Scientists analysing antibodies in blood tests identified seven people had the virus in Illinois, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi well before cases were first officially confirmed in these states, according to a study published by medical journal Clinical Infectious Diseases on Tuesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made its first report of community transmission on February 26, 2020.

The findings of the study, which analysed blood samples from 24,079 participants across all 50 states between January 2 and March 18, 2020, suggest Americans were being infected with the virus long before many states recognised their first confirmed cases at the end of February or the first week of March.

The virus may have been in Illinois as early as December 24, 2019, though the first official case was reported a month later, according to the scientists.

The study’s findings also indicate the virus may have been in Pennsylvania in early February and in Mississippi in early March.

One participant experienced a fever, cough, and a sore throat and said they believed they had the virus two weeks after their sample was collected. Other participants had mild symptoms, including fatigue and mild respiratory issues.

The authors of the study said: “Determining the presence and location of SARS-CoV-2 in the earliest days of the US pandemic … is important for understanding of the emergence of the virus, the epidemiology of this virus and informing simulation models used to predict cases, deaths and healthcare utilisation, and subsequently guide future pandemic planning, policy development and resource allocation.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that New York state is ending all Covid-19 restrictions across commercial and social settings. Once a hotspot for the virus, New York has reached its 70 per cent vaccination rate for adults across the state, Cuomo said. New York has administered more than 20.2m vaccine doses to date, “more per capita than any other big state” in the US, he said. 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reclassified the Delta strain of Covid-19 as a variant of concern, saying it is more transmissible. The Delta variant, which was first detected in India, has spread to at least 66 countries, the CDC said. The Delta variant ravaged India earlier this year, sending the country’s case rates to record highs.

US deaths attributed to Covid-19 have surpassed 600,000 four months after reaching half a million, reflecting a sharp slowdown in new infections and hospitalisations from the virus. Data compiled by Johns Hopkins University showed that 600,012 Americans have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic began.

California has lifted most Covid-19 rules on business activity and mask-wearing, marking what has been called a “grand reopening” for the state. Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, laid out plans in April to reopen on June 15. And on Tuesday, California eliminated state-imposed social distancing requirements and capacity limits for restaurants, bars, grocery stores, gyms and other businesses.

Confidence among America’s top executives has rebounded to near-record levels, according to a new survey, setting the stage for a hiring and investment surge in the coming months. The Business Roundtable, one of Washington’s leading lobby groups, said that its economic outlook index shot up nine points between the first and second quarters to 116 points.

A fifth of coronavirus patients who reported no symptoms while infected said they were suffering from so-called long Covid a month later, a study has found. The most common conditions included pain, breathing difficulties, elevated cholesterol, fatigue and hypertension, said US-based non-profit Fair Health, which studied more than 1.9m Covid-19 patients, including under-18s, between February and December last year.

Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon on Tuesday signalled that plans for a major easing of coronavirus restrictions will be put on hold until next month. The Scottish government had previously hoped that restrictions could be reduced to the lowest tier, known as level zero, on June 28. However, it had been widely expected to follow the UK government’s announcement on Monday of slower loosening in England.

Businesses have warned that the UK government risks “falling at the final hurdle” after it refused to extend key coronavirus support programmes that begin to wind down at the end of the month. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to delay the final stage of ending the lockdown by a month means that many businesses — including nightclubs, music festivals and theatres — will be unable to open before late July. Pubs and restaurants will have to continue to operate with restricted capacity.

The spread of coronavirus has decreased in India and Japan, according to the FT infection tracker, although cases are rising rise in other parts of Asia. Infections in India, which have been driven by the Delta variant, have been declining for a number of weeks. There were 6.3 coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents in India on June 13, down from a high of 28.6 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in early May.