Coronavirus: Americans will ‘likely’ need a booster to be fully vaccinated, Fauci says - as it happened

Americans will “likely” need to have an additional dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to be considered fully vaccinated, Anthony Fauci said.

A final determination would need to be made by the Food and Drug Administration, followed by a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fauci said on Thursday, but his view was that a third dose of an mRNA vaccine would be needed by individuals to have long-term protection against Covid-19.

Authorisation by the drug regulator and a follow-up recommendation from the top public health agency could have ramifications for various levels of government, schools and businesses that have introduced vaccine mandates.

Jeff Zients, head of the White House’s coronavirus task force, said during a press briefing the administration would apply the “same intensity of operations and coordination and partnership” to the booster campaign that it has for the rollout of initial doses once additional shots have been authorised by the FDA and a panel of experts have subsequently made their recommendation on it to the CDC.

Fauci, President Joe Biden’s top medical adviser, pointed to data from recent studies in Israel that showed recipients of a third dose of an mRNA vaccine led to a 10-fold decrease in the relative risk of both confirmed infection and severe illness and that the risk of infection after a booster shot was lower than for individuals who had received only two doses.

“If the response is durable, then you’re going to very likely have a three-dose regimen being the routine regimen, but we’ll have to make sure that’s the case,” he said.

Israel, which has begun rolling out booster shots, now defines three doses of an mRNA vaccine as being fully vaccinated.

Fauci said health officials were “paying attention” to the new variant of interest, ‘Mu’, that was identified by the World Health Organization this week. “We take everything like that seriously, but we don’t consider it an immediate threat right now,” he said in response to a reporter’s question.

Seattle is reinstating a universal mask mandate for large outdoor concerts or sporting events in an effort to control the spread of Covid-19 in the city and surrounding county.

Effective September 7, masks will be required at any outdoor event with more than 500 attendees, King county health officer Jeff Duchin announced on Thursday. The order applies to anyone aged 5 years and older, regardless of vaccination status.

The health department’s order also “strongly recommends” face coverings be worn in all other outdoor settings where people cannot keep six feet apart from individuals who are not part of the same household.

King county, in which Seattle is located, is home to more than 2.2m residents, making it the most-populous county in the state of Washington and the 12th-most populous in the US. 

The latest surge of Covid-19 infections, propelled by the Delta variant, is taking “a heavy toll on hospitals and the healthcare system”, public health officials said. Although King county has “some of the highest vaccination rates of any large metro area” in the US, officials said there are about 750,000 people who are not vaccinated, including children under the age of 12.

“Every day, large numbers of hospitals are reaching out to the Washington Medical Coordination Center. In the past few days, nearly 60 per cent of the calls have been Covid-related,” Dr Steve Mitchell, director of emergency services at Harborview Medical Center, said in a statement. “Capacity and staffing issues in hospitals are widespread and consistent across the state.”

Washington’s neighbouring state of Oregon last month reinstated a mask mandate for public outdoor settings. The stringent rules set the pair apart from other US states that have thus far targeted indoor settings, if at all.

The two states are both dealing with record levels of Covid-19 hospitalisations, despite having some of the highest levels of vaccination coverage in the US. Washington (60.4 per cent) ranks 9th in the US in terms of the share of its population that is fully vaccinated, while Oregon ranks 12th (58.1 per cent).

Chicago teachers have warned of “escalating action” if Covid-19 safety protocols are not boosted at schools in the city.

The Chicago Teachers Union said reports of safety failures at public schools “have been pouring in” from across the city since students began returning to classes on Monday.

The union, which represents more than 28,000 teachers and school staff in Illinois’ most populous city, said the Chicago Public Schools’ leadership “continues to drag on bargaining enforceable safety agreements” with both the CTU and SEIU Local 73, a union representing more than 31,000 workers primarily in the public service.

“Overcrowding, lack of testing, AC breakdowns, and other mitigation failures will drive needless infections and preventable harm,” the CTU said in a statement.

Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Local 73, said on Thursday it was going to take “more than vaccines” to keep staff and students safe, and that adequate safety protocols would be needed.

“CPS leadership, please partner with us because we want this to be a healthy and safe environment,” she said during a press conference.

“What will it take to close a school community?” Stacey Davis Gates, vice president of the CTU, said on Thursday. “As of today, as of the moment, we don’t have an agreement on that. Dare I say, parents don’t even know what that metric is.”

The CTU said it would “step up resistance” if the CPS did not improve the safety conditions in schools.

Italy may eventually mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for all eligible citizens, prime minister Mario Draghi said on Thursday.

Draghi said during a press conference that all Italians may be required to be vaccinated when EU health authorities give full approval to the vaccine. So far the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has granted conditional approval to four vaccines.

Last April Italy became the first country in Europe to require its healthcare workers to be vaccinated against Covid, under threat of losing their job, after the government had pushed through an emergency decree.

Draghi also expressed solidarity with those who have been attacked by members of anti-vaccine movements.

“I want to express full solidarity to all those who have been subjected to violence on the part of anti-vaxxers, a particularly hateful and cowardly violence when it is directed against those who are in the front line against the pandemic,” Draghi said.

“I reiterate the invitation to get vaccinated, an act towards oneself and towards others,” he added.

Draghi also said he was confident that 80 per cent of the population aged 12 and over would be fully vaccinated by the end of September.

The rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in England has prevented an estimated 143,600 hospital admissions, 24m infections and 105,000 deaths, figures from Public Health England show.

Previous estimates put the number of hospital admissions averted at 82,100. PHE said vaccine effectiveness estimates used in its modelling were updated this week.

The roughly 143,600 admissions averted, which PHE said was likely to be an underestimate, are all among people aged 65 years and over.

PHE said on Thursday that by August 22, 64.3 per cent of the population had received a first dose, with 57.2 per cent having had both jabs.

A total of 6,484 people were admitted to hospital with suspected Covid-19 in the week to August 28, the latest figures show, up 4.6 per cent on the previous seven days. Since the pandemic began, 519,000 people have been admitted.

Switzerland’s economy grew by 1.8 per cent in the second quarter of the year, nearly erasing the economic damage done by the coronavirus pandemic in the wealthy alpine country. 

The Swiss economy is now 0.5 per cent smaller than its size at the end of 2019.

“[GDP] grew markedly in the service sector as a result of relaxed Covid measures. Private consumption recovered strongly. Industry also grew, although not as strongly as in previous quarters,” the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs said in a statement on Thursday.

The hospitality sector was the biggest driver of the rebound, growing 49 per cent in the three months to the end of June. 

Switzerland enforced less severe lockdowns on public life than other European countries during the pandemic, but in the first quarter of the year, restaurants and bars were forced to close to cope with the second wave of infections. 

Just under 52 per cent of the population has now received two doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Infections have been rising over the past month, with a seven day average of 30 cases per 100,000 people. 

Poland hopes the European Commission will approve its request for tens of billions of euros worth of pandemic recovery funds this month, its finance minister said, despite a stand-off with Brussels over Warsaw’s reform of its judicial system.

Warsaw has requested almost €24bn in EU grants and another €12bn in loans under the bloc’s Covid-19 recovery initiative, but the commission has so far failed to approve the financing given longstanding concerns that Poland’s conservative nationalist ruling party has undermined the rule of law.

The judicial overhaul first enacted by the Law and Justice party five years ago gives politicians powers over the judiciary and created a disciplinary chamber that can punish judges over their rulings. In July the EU’s top court ordered some elements of the reform to be suspended and ruled that the disciplinary chamber was not compatible with EU law.

Tadeusz Koscinski, Poland’s finance minister, said on Thursday that he believed the judicial stand-off should be “decoupled” from the pandemic recovery financing and that he was hopeful of approval for the money this month.

An EU failure to provide the money would be “a tremendous loss not only for Poland but the whole of Europe”, he said.

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Initial jobless claims in the US dropped to a new pandemic-era low, in a sign that the labour market is continuing its gradual recovery as employers pick up the hiring pace.

State unemployment agencies reported 340,000 new applications in the week ending August 28, down from 354,000 last week, the US Labor Department said on Thursday. That was less than economists’ expectations for 345,000.

Continuing claims fell 2.75m for the week ending August 21, compared with 2.91m for the previous period.

US job gains have picked up in recent months as the Covid-19 vaccinations campaign has progressed and businesses have reopened, but ongoing concerns about falling ill at work, especially with the spread of the more contagious Delta variant, as well as childcare issues and enhanced unemployment benefits have deterred a quicker return to the workforce, according to some economists and policymakers.

Roughly half of US states have scrapped extra federal aid early in a bid to ease labour shortages, but job openings are still hovering near record highs and jobless claims remain well above the pre-pandemic levels of about 200,000.

The enhanced benefits, which include an additional $300 in weekly support for unemployed Americans, lapse on September 6. 

England’s NHS will need an extra £10bn in funding to cover Covid-19-related costs, deal with the growing backlog of patients, and allow for lost efficiency savings, groups representing the service have said.

The extra funding would come on top of a planned budget of around £140bn for 2022-23.

The NHS Confederation and NHS Providers, which represent hospitals, doctors and other care providers, said in a joint release on Thursday that without the support it would “inevitably become harder for patients to access the care they need . . . and for the NHS to provide the right quality of timely care to all who require it”.

Of the £10bn, the groups said £4.6bn was needed for infection control and prevention measures in hospitals, as well as to address staff shortages and care for patients with long Covid.

Between £3.5bn and £4.5bn was needed to address the “backlogs of care that have built up as a result of Covid-19”, the groups said. Around 5.45m people were waiting for non-urgent operations in England at the end of June, the highest number since records began in August 2007. 

Chaand Nagpaul, council chair at the British Medical Association, said the government had a “moral duty to commit to giving the NHS ‘whatever it needs’ as per the Chancellor’s own words”.

The NHS received roughly £212bn in funding in 2020-21, according to the Kings Fund, £63bn of which was directed to Covid-19-related services. An extra £22bn was provided for 2021-22.

The lead scientist on the Zoe Covid study has said coronavirus will continue to spread without some restrictions, as caseloads increase across the UK.

The study, which uses an app to track infections, estimates that the number of new daily symptomatic cases of Covid-19 rose by 10 per cent to about 57,158.

The estimate is based on 27,922 swab tests conducted between August 14 and August 28. 

“The rise in cases, as well as hospitalisations and deaths is one of the highest in Europe,” said lead scientist Tim Spector. “This is evidence that without at least some restrictions Covid will continue to spread.”

Cases are rising rapidly among under-18s and at the current rates will soon overtake the number of new daily cases in the 18-35 category. 

That trend could continue as schools in England return this week.

“The sharp increase in cases in Scotland following their return to school in August is a real concern, especially as children in England and Wales are now heading back,” said Spector.

He added: “The question is — how high do numbers of cases and hospitalisations have to get before we recognise that Covid-19 remains a real threat?”

An estimated 970,000 people in the UK had long Covid in the four weeks to August 1, up from 945,000 the month before, the Office for National Statistics has said.

Of those, 84 per cent said they first had, or suspected they had, Covid-19 at least 12 weeks previously. About 40 per cent said they first fell ill at least one year beforehand.

The ONS said long Covid was most prevalent among people aged 35 to 69, women, people living in the most deprived areas, those working in health or social care, and those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability.

Fatigue was the most common symptom reported, followed by shortness of breath, muscle ache and difficulty concentrating.

There is “no urgent need” for most people who have had two doses of Covid-19 vaccine to receive a third, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said, even as rich countries around the world plough ahead with so-called booster shots.

The EU agency said that because vaccines had proved “highly effective” at protecting against hospitalisation, severe disease and death, doses should be prioritised for the roughly one in three adults in the region who had not yet been fully inoculated.

However, the ECDC said that “additional doses” for those with weakened immune systems “should already be considered . . . as part of their primary vaccination”.

“Some studies report that an additional vaccine dose can improve the immune response in immunocompromised individuals, such as organ transplant recipients whose initial responses to vaccination were low,” the agency added. The UK announced on Wednesday that it would begin offering third doses to anyone over 12 years old with severe immunosuppression.

The European Medicines Agency said it would nevertheless be “assessing data” on booster doses and that member states “may consider preparatory plans” for administering third shots.

The advice comes amid a rush by other high-income countries to roll out third jabs ahead of the winter. In August, the heads of the US government’s leading health agencies said that Washington was “prepared to offer booster shots for all Americans” eight months after their second dose.

The fitness sector is starting to bounce back from the pandemic, with UK operator The Gym Group on Thursday reporting “strong demand” for membership and outlining plans to open new sites by the end of next year. 

Gym memberships in Europe fell 15 per cent to 54.8m following the initial spread of Covid-19, according to a report from professional services firm Deloitte and trade association EuropeActive, pushing the sector’s revenue down by a third. 

The Gym Group, which operates 190 discount facilities in the UK, said that its revenues fell a fifth in the first half of this year to £29m, while it posted a £19m operating loss.

But it added that the reopening of gyms in the UK as lockdown restrictions were eased generated an uptick in demand for membership.

“Since the reopening of gyms in April, The Gym Group has performed strongly,” said chief executive Richard Darwin. 

“With restrictions now lifted, we are planning to open 40 new sites by the end of 2022, of which three have opened so far,” he added.

There was no surge in suicides in England and Wales during the first months of the pandemic last year, data from the Office for National Statistics show, easing concerns over the wider societal impact of Covid-19.

About 1,600 suicides occurred between April and July 2020 in England and Wales, equivalent to an age-standardised mortality rate of 9.2 deaths per 100,000 people, the ONS said on Thursday.

“This rate is statistically significantly lower than rates for the same period in the previous three years,” it said.

The latest available evidence “shows that suicide rates did not increase during the early stages of the pandemic, which is contrary to some speculation at the time,” said Julie Stanborough, head of health and life events at the ONS.

She added that the findings were comparable with research covering other countries — such as the US, Germany, Japan and Australia — which found that suicide numbers remained largely unchanged or declined in the early months of the pandemic compared with expected levels based on pre-pandemic trends.

The lower suicide rate in England and Wales was primarily driven by a decrease among men, while there was no significant change for women.  

Two in five people did not fully understand the quarantine requirements when arriving in England from an amber list country, according to an official survey carried out in July that casts doubt over the effectiveness of the measure.

Individuals who arrived in England from an amber list country or territory were required to quarantine for 10 days and to take a Covid-19 test on, or before, day two and on, or after, day eight following arrival.

However, a survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics between July 12 and 17 showed that 41 per cent of adults returning from a country in that risk category did not fully understand the rules in place during quarantine or were unsure of them.

The amber list rules have changed since the survey was carried out.

The survey found that 15 per cent of respondents mistakenly thought that a visit to the shops was allowed during quarantine.

About 1 in 10 people thought it was possible to go out for essential household responsibilities, such as taking children to school and a similar proportion believed that they could go out if they wore a face covering.

In addition, one in five mistakenly believed that they could not go out to get or return a Covid-19 test during quarantine and a marginally higher proportion incorrectly believed that leaving accommodation for emergency medical treatment or hospital attendance was not allowed.

People who have had two vaccine doses are not only less likely to catch coronavirus, they are also less likely to develop long Covid, a study has found.

Using data collected by the Zoe Covid-19 study, which uses an app to track symptomatic infections, researchers at King's College London analysed how many people went on to catch the virus after either their first or second jab.

Between December and July, 0.5 per cent of the more than 1.2m users of the Zoe app who received their first dose subsequently tested positive, while 0.2 per cent of the 971,000 who received their second also fell ill.

Among those who received two jabs and continued to use the Zoe app for more than a month after they were first infected, 5.2 per cent said their symptoms lasted for 28 days or more. That compared with a rate of 11.4 per cent among a control group who had not received any doses of vaccine.

The odds of long Covid after post-vaccination infection were therefore “roughly halved by having two doses”, the researchers said in a paper published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases on Wednesday.

“Almost all individual symptoms of Covid-19 were less common in vaccinated versus unvaccinated participants, and more people in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated groups were completely asymptomatic”, the researchers added.

The UK’s education secretary has said England should “strike a sensible balance” with its isolation rules, as children return to schools despite the prospect of a rise in infections.

“What we wanted to do is to get that school experience back to . . . normal,” Gavin Williamson told Sky News on Thursday.

The education secretary said testing remained an important measure, and over 9m coronavirus tests would be conducted in secondary schools “over the next couple of weeks”.

“But, of course, we do have a contingency framework in place if there’s areas of particular need,” he added.

“If a child has Covid, they’ll have to self-isolate, test and trace will contact those who’ve been in contact with them and they’ll advise them to have a PCR test,” said Williamson.

However, contacts of a positive case of Covid-19 will still be able to attend school for in-person learning.

“We are having to strike . . . a sensible balance to making sure that children get the very best education,” Williamson said.

Airlines Wizz Air, Jet2 and Ryanair have all reported rising demand towards the end of the summer as travel restrictions across Europe were eased, with passenger numbers up on last year although still below pre-pandemic levels.

Hungary-based Wizz Air said in a trading update on Thursday that it flew more than 3.5m people in August, up 50 per cent on the same month last year.

The FTSE 250 company’s load factor, a measure of the percentage of seats on a plane occupied by passengers, rose 12 percentage points to 84 per cent. Wizz Air said it planned to introduce four new routes in Europe, seeking to expand its footprint as the industry emerges from the pandemic.

Jet2 said in an update that it had rolled out flights at about 55 per cent of its summer 2019 capacity since the UK government in mid-July eased some of its travel restrictions.

The group said that passengers were continuing to book “significantly closer to departure” because of uncertainty surrounding the government’s three-weekly review of its traffic light system.

Next summer was predicted to be better still. “Bookings to date are encouraging, with average load factors at the same point ahead of summer 19,” said Jet2.

Ryanair said it flew 11.1m passengers in August, up 58 per cent on the same month last year. Its load factor rose 9 percentage points to 82 per cent. Chief executive Michael O’Leary said this week that the airline expected to return to pre-pandemic passenger numbers this winter.

Profits at UK housebuilder Barratt Developments surged in the year to June as the housing market rebounded from the pandemic, but the company said its weekly reservation rates had since dipped as some of the support for prices had fallen away.

In full-year results on Thursday, the FTSE 100 builder reported adjusted operating profits for the year of £919m, a sharp rise from the £507m in the previous period and ahead of the £876m expected in analyst forecasts collated by S&P Capital IQ.

The average selling price for its homes rose 3 per cent to £289,000.

There remained “very strong demand for houses across the country”, said chief executive David Thomas in the results statement. But the company also said net reservation rates per average week, a measure of demand, had fallen to 277 since the June year-end.

The rate was 314 in the year to June, a period that Thomas said was particularly active, highlighting “pent-up demand following the national lockdown, as well as increased Help to Buy reservation activity ahead of the changes which would remove access to Help to Buy for existing homeowners”.

The housebuilding sector has made a dramatic recovery since early last year, carried through the crisis by government measures to feed supply including a tax cut on house purchases.

Barratt had flagged in a July trading update that its profit for the year would be just ahead of the top end of market expectations at that point. The company’s shares have risen more than a third over the past year, but are still below the level where they traded before the pandemic.

Millions of Indian children are returning to classrooms for the first time in 18 months, as state governments begin to reopen schools that have been closed since the start of the pandemic.

India’s estimated 270m schoolchildren have been out of classes for longer than those in any other major economy, with Indian policymakers prioritising reviving the pandemic-stricken economy.

Pervasive public fears about children falling ill from Covid-19 in overcrowded classrooms — and the lack of any public pressure for students to return to onsite learning — also led policymakers to be cautious about school reopening, especially for young pupils.

But with Covid cases sharply down after a devastating second wave earlier this year, and with concerns about social disparities widening due to the protracted closures, states began reopening schools on Thursday, according to their own phased plans.

States such as Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, and the capital New Delhi, have begun their reopening with classes for older students in the ninth to 12th year of their education. Others, including Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, are allowing middle school students, from year six and above, to attend school as well. 

In many states, primary schools remain closed, as they have since March 2020.

India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, and the southern state of Telangana reopened primary schools on Thursday for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

As students filter back, teachers across India now face the daunting task of helping them get back into the swing of education after such a protracted interruption.

Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government touted online learning as an effective substitute for classroom teaching, education experts say a lack of access to digital devices and strong internet connections left many poor children struggling, while their wealthier contemporaries were able to progress through virtual classes.

North Korea has turned down a batch of 3m Chinese-made vaccines, a likely signal it is not ready to roll out coronavirus jabs to its population despite international offers of assistance.

Pyongyang can access the Covax programme under Gavi, a UN-backed alliance, but foreign medical experts have not gained access to the country to assess the status of its distribution networks.

According to a statement from Unicef, North Korea’s health ministry “communicated” that the 3m Sinovac-made jabs should be reallocated to “severely affected countries”.

Unicef said North Korea “said it will continue to communicate with Covax . . . to receive Covid-19 vaccines in the coming months”.

“Partner agencies continue to work closely with the relevant health authorities in DPRK to ensure that the necessary support is provided to the government to prepare for such an opportunity,” the UN agency added, referring to North Korea’s official name.

Since the start of the pandemic, Pyongyang has claimed zero cases of Covid-19. These claims have been met with disbelief by experts and officials in South Korea and the United States.

But experts also say that the country’s strict clampdown on cross-border trade and travel with China — which has included almost all land and air links, and most sea freight — has played an important part in reducing the likelihood of a severe outbreak.

Still, testing rates have been low with fewer than 1 per cent of the population tested since the start of the pandemic, according to WHO data.

The Malaysian government on Thursday set a ceiling price in shops of RM19.90 (less than $5) for Covid-19 rapid antigen testing kits, the aim being to facilitate home-testing.

The ceiling price will come into force from Sunday. The wholesale price for the kits was capped at RM16.

“The ceiling wholesale and retail pricing of Covid-19 antigen rapid test kits is made according to the appropriateness and suitability for more effective enforcement to ensure reasonable prices and availability of supplies in the market for the benefit of consumers and traders,” Khairy Jamaluddin, health minister, and Alexander Nanta Linggi, domestic trade and consumer affairs minister, said in a joint statement.

The kits have often been sold through shops for as much as RM40 in recent months. The ministers warned that sellers flouting the new regulation under the Price Control and Anti-Profiteering Act would be punished severely.

Individuals found guilty of ignoring the ceiling price would face a maximum fine of RM100,000 or jail for up to three years. Commercial operations would receive a fine up to RM500,000 for the first offence and as much as RM1m for subsequent offences.

A dearth of workers willing to drive trucks has become so severe in the US that some fleet managers are petitioning to let more foreign operators into the country.

Truck driving has always been a job with high turnover and a scarcity of labour. But the shortage has deepened since the pandemic, as training schools closed, some drivers quit and a stricter drug and alcohol testing system led to about 60,000 dismissals, said Bob Costello, chief economist at American Trucking Associations. The shortfall is “the worst ever”, he said.

Certain smaller trucking companies are now imploring the US government to loosen or hasten visa approvals to alleviate strained supply networks.

At Petroleum Marketing Group, a fuel distributor to more than 1,300 petrol stations on the US east coast, vice-president of operations André LeBlanc said he had gone “on the warpath” to warn governors, senators and the US transportation and labour departments that the lack of drivers could lead to fuel shortages and increased prices at the pump.

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Can money buy you love — or could a cheap date prove the way to a millennial’s heart?

I’m sitting across from James, who I met earlier this evening. It’s 10.20pm on a Wednesday night in Soho and we’ve had six cocktails each.

As he tells me about learning how to make brioche with his twin brother under lockdown, I smile and laugh, but mentally, I’m totting up how much money is left in my bank account and what this evening will cost me. Both figures are dangerously close.

Now that the world has started to open back up, dating is once again becoming an expensive game.

Last winter, I wrote a piece for Harper’s Bazaar about how Covid-19 had changed dating for better and for worse. As a 25-year-old Londoner, I have found dating under lockdown to be not just an emotional rollercoaster, but a financial game changer.

The last time I didn’t think about money on a date was January 24. The temperature was minus one, but felt more like minus 15. I put on my thickest coat and scarf, gloves, two pairs of socks and walked from my flat in Pimlico to Seven Dials to meet a first date.

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After 18 months of cancelled and postponed art fairs, the market has gone from famine to feast for the autumn season. Events next week include Cosmoscow, Art Paris and Photo London, plus the Armory Show and Independent fairs in New York.

As if these weren’t enough, there’s the prospect of four major events within a few weeks of each other in Europe: the postponed Art Basel runs from September 24-26; Frieze London and Frieze Masters are due back in Regent’s Park on October 13-17; and Fiac in Paris falls the following week.

All is not rosy, however, given that the pandemic is still here with the unpredictable Delta variant. The PAD design fair in London has been cancelled while restrictions on Europeans getting into the US has dented in-person exhibitor numbers at the Armory, falling from 212 to 157.

This week the US authorities warned against travel to Switzerland and while the AstraZeneca vaccine is acceptable at the Swiss border, it is not recognised by the Art Basel venue, so visitors vaccinated this way (most of the UK’s art trade) will need to get another test, offered on site.

Art adviser Emily Tsingou says the logistics could be the least of the problems. “We are all ready to go back to school and will find ways,” she says. “The questions are more about what material dealers will bring to the major fairs.

“Which collectors will get first dibs — those that see the works in person? Or are they competing with people online? Will a dealer’s backroom be visible virtually? I don’t expect a seismic fair season, which could dent confidence. It is all very complicated right now.”

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​​New Zealand reported 49 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, a substantial fall on Wednesday’s 75 new infections and, authorities said, a sign that the country’s nationwide lockdown was working.

All of the new cases were in Auckland, which has borne the brunt of the recent outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant in the country, taking the total number of cases in the outbreak to 736.

Of those, 725 cases are active, with 42 people in hospital. Six are in intensive care and three are on ventilators. 

“The latest lower number is encouraging and does show that our alert level four lockdown is working even against the Delta,” said Dr Ashley Bloomfield, director-general of health.

Vietnam has granted a visa amnesty for foreigners stuck in the country because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A notice posted on the immigration department’s website on Wednesday said that foreigners who entered Vietnam from March 1 last year would be permitted to remain until the end of the month even if their visas had expired. They could also leave the country at any time without having to reapply for a new visa.

Vietnam closed its borders and cancelled most international flights in March last year but some international arrivals have been allowed in during brief respites in travel restrictions.

The country is in the midst of its first major outbreak of the virus and authorities have imposed a series of stay-at-home orders in cities and stringent restrictions on domestic travel. The country reported 11,434 cases on Wednesday.

Taiwan on Thursday morning received the first batch of 15m BioNTech Covid-19 jabs acquired by the world’s two largest technology manufacturers after many months of political wrangling.

Some 930,000 doses of the vaccine arrived at Taipei Taoyuan International airport aboard a plane from Luxembourg, helping to ease a shortage that has been holding up the country’s inoculation campaign.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer, and a Buddhist charitable organisation acquired the vaccines through Fosun, the Chinese group that has the distribution rights for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, after almost year-long efforts by Taiwan’s health ministry to buy the jabs from BioNTech broke down. Taipei blamed what it called Chinese interference.

Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory and frequently presses third countries, as well as companies and non-governmental groups, to treat the island as part of China.

According to the Taiwanese government, BioNTech pulled back from a procurement contract that Taipei had signed in January after starting to demand that language calling Taiwan a country be removed from the announcement of the deal.

Although Taiwan has been successful in containing the coronavirus pandemic, with a total of just 16,001 confirmed cases and 836 deaths for a population of almost 24m, health authorities came under pressure following a local outbreak in May because vaccination started later than most countries.

So far, about 43 per cent of the population have received one vaccine shot, and almost all of the 12m or so doses delivered so far have been administered.

Australian businesses have called on the government to stick to its plan to reopen the economy once vaccination rates rise, striking an uncertain tone as Covid cases leap.

Jennifer Westacott, chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, said on Wednesday the national plan was “vital to recovery”. Her statement followed an open letter — signed by the heads of 81 of Australia’s biggest companies, including mining giant BHP, Commonwealth Bank and flag carrier Qantas — calling on the government to “stay the course” to reopening.

“Our economy is resilient and by sticking to the national plan to safely reopen as vaccination rates increase, we can get Australia back on the path to recovery,’’ Westacott said.

The national government said it would begin dismantling lockdowns once 70 per cent of the population had received two doses of Covid vaccines. A further unlocking would follow at 80 per cent.

But state premiers have called that plan into question in recent days as the country battles its biggest outbreak of the virus to date, with hotspots reporting leaps in case numbers. New South Wales reported 1,288 local cases of the virus on Thursday. In Victoria, the country’s next biggest hotspot, new infections rose from 76 on Tuesday to 179 on Thursday.

On Thursday, Queensland state premier Annastacia Palaszczuk wrote on Twitter that “serious discussions are needed” before the state could consider reopening. “I sympathise with people interstate enduring months of lockdown, but my job is to protect Queenslanders,” she said. “That’s why I’m calling to see detailed modelling, so we can give Queenslanders answers.”

Australia posted 0.7 per cent GDP growth quarter on quarter on Wednesday, beating analysts’ estimates, but experts have warned that growth in the next quarter will depend heavily on some sort of unlocking going ahead.

An investigation by Moderna and its Japanese distribution partner, Takeda, has identified the contaminants found in three batches of Covid-19 vaccines as stainless steel, which probably got mixed in during assembly on their production line.

In a statement issued late on Wednesday, the two companies said the contaminant was unlikely to pose any additional health risk or affect the efficacy of the vaccines.

Takeda will begin the process to recall the lots containing 1.63m doses, which were suspended following reports from several vaccination centres in Japan that the vaccine vials contained foreign matter.

“Stainless steel is routinely used in heart valves, joint replacements and metal sutures and staples. As such, it is not expected that injection of the particles identified in these lots in Japan would result in increased medical risk,” they said. 

The companies also said there was no evidence so far that the recent deaths of two individuals within days of receiving their second Moderna shots in Japan were related to administration of the vaccine. “The relationship is currently considered to be coincidental. It is important to conclude a formal investigation to confirm this,” they said. 

Japan’s health ministry had been investigating the deaths of two men in their 30s after they received Moderna Covid-19 vaccines that were among supplies that were later suspended because of the risk of contamination.

Among the three lots, one contained contaminants while two adjacent lots that were produced at the same place during the same period were also suspended as a precautionary measure. The two men received their second jabs from an adjacent lot.

Socialist governments in Spain and Portugal are raising wages and stepping up social spending to ensure a “fair recovery” from recessions triggered by Covid-19 as EU funds begin to pour in and their economies revive.

Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, announced an increase in the minimum wage on Wednesday, saying there would be “no economic recovery if it does not reach the pockets of all Spaniards in the form of more jobs, better wages and more dignified pensions”.

Earlier this week António Costa, his Portuguese counterpart, pledged a package of reforms ranging from measures to tackle youth unemployment to increased child tax benefits as well as investments in health and social security. “The best response to crises is solidarity, not austerity,” he said.

The announcements reflect increasing pressure from across the political spectrum over how to spend the tide of EU pandemic recovery funds beginning to reach the Iberian peninsula.

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European companies have been hit with a rise in shareholder protests over pay at annual meetings this year as big investors sought to punish businesses they think funnelled too much cash to executives during the pandemic.

According to a report by Georgeson, a corporate governance consultancy, there was an 18 per cent rise in shareholder dissent over remuneration-related resolutions across seven major European markets, including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. Georgeson classes a vote of at least 10 per cent cast against a management proposal as significant dissent.

Spain’s Ibex 35 index of big companies had the highest proportion of contested pay resolutions, with 60.6 per cent of remuneration report proposals contested in 2021, compared with 33.2 per cent last year. Some 57.7 per cent of pay policy resolutions in Spain were hit with “significant dissent” compared with 28.6 per cent in 2020.

Daniele Vitale, head of corporate governance in UK/Europe for Georgeson, said during the 2020 annual meeting season, investors had given companies some leeway on pay because of the tough and unexpected situation they were facing.

This patience had run out in 2021, he said, with many big asset managers promising to get tougher over concerns there was a disconnect between how companies were approaching executive pay and how they were treating shareholders and other stakeholders.

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Surging Delta variant cases have pushed ViacomCBS to delay the cinematic release dates for two Tom Cruise movies, Top Gun: Maverick and Mission: Impossible 7.

The latest instalment of the Top Gun franchise has been pushed to May 27 next year from November 19. The new Mission: Impossible film will move to September 30 next year. 

Hollywood had hoped that rising vaccinations in the US would spur a robust box office recovery this summer that would accelerate into the autumn, but recent surveys have shown that audiences have become less confident about gathering in cinemas.

Studios are now coping with a backlog of delayed films, including expensive offerings like the Cruise movies that need a strong global box office take to recoup costs. 

Following the ViacomCBS shuffles, Sony moved up the release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife to the pre-Thanksgiving November 19 date that had been occupied by Top Gun.

Moderna has submitted initial data to the US Food and Drug Administration seeking regulatory approval for a Covid-19 booster vaccine.

The data, from a phase 2 study giving a 50mg dose to 344 participants six months following their final dose of Moderna’s initial two-jab regimen, “shows robust antibody responses against the Delta variant”, Stéphane Bancel, chief executive, said on Wednesday.

Moderna said the additional dose of its mRNA vaccine “significantly increased” neutralising titers against all variants of concern including the Beta strain by 32-fold, Gamma by 43.6-fold, and the highly contagious Delta variant by 42.3-fold.

The submission of the data follows Pfizer and BioNTech, which late last month became the first companies to apply for US regulatory approval for a booster vaccine.

In mid-August, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that people with weakened immune systems receive an additional dose of an mRNA jab.

Moderna said on Wednesday it expected to submit data to the European Medicines Agency and other regulatory authorities around the world “in the coming days”.

More than 1m Americans have received a booster shot, pushing the latest phase of the country’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout past a milestone.

Since US health officials on August 13 authorised a third dose of an mRNA vaccine for people with weakened immune systems, 1.08m Americans have received an additional shot, according to data released on Wednesday from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During an August 13 meeting of a panel of medical experts advising the CDC, health officials acknowledged about 1.1m Americans who had received the two-dose BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, and about 90,000 who received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson jab, had obtained at least one additional dose before it had been authorised for immunocompromised people by the top public health agency and the US Food and Drug Administration.

The US has administered more than 371m doses of vaccine since the rollout began in December, resulting in 52.6 per cent of the population being fully vaccinated. Half of the 50 states have managed to fully vaccinate at least 50 per cent of their residents.

One in five US states reported record high levels of Covid-19 hospitalisations during August. By late August, the number of patients hospitalised in the US with coronavirus topped 100,000 for the first time since January. Although that figure continued to edge higher, to 104,178 on August 31 — more than double the level at the end of July — there are signs the national pace of admissions is easing.

About 500,000 people in the UK with severely weakened immune systems will be offered a third jab in an effort to protect them from the virus ahead of the winter months, UK health secretary Sajid Javid said on Wednesday. He said the decision was based on the recommendations of the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, but stressed it was not the beginning of the long-awaited booster campaign. 

The degenerative effect on the brain of coronavirus will add fuel to the “pandemic of dementia”, which will affect an estimated 80m by the end of the decade, scientists have warned. Alzheimer’s Disease International unveiled on Wednesday a specialist working group to better understand the scale of the problem and recommend ways to combat it.

Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced plans to require over-18s to show evidence they have been vaccinated in order to gain entry to nightclubs and large events. The move by the Scottish government, which has previously been sceptical about the use of such “vaccine passports”, underscores concern about surging cases since schools returned last month.

World leaders have been urged by academics, celebrities, former politicians and chief executives to convene a global summit at this year’s UN General Assembly and commit to vaccinating 70 per cent of the world’s population by mid-2022. Signatories, including the chief executives of Anglo American, BT and Rolls-Royce, said in a letter that 7bn doses of “high-quality” coronavirus vaccines should be sent to developing countries by the end of the year, with a further 7bn dispatched by the middle of 2022.

One in seven children aged 11 to 17 in England who have had Covid-19 suffer from persistent symptoms, a government-backed study has found. The CLoCk study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research and UK Research and Innovation, compared data from about 3,000 people aged 11 to 17 who tested positive for Covid-19 in England between January and March this year and 3,700 children who tested negative.