In England, an advertising blitz has been launched to encourage people to stay at home despite declining coronavirus transmission rates, the success of the vaccine rollout and the launch of the government’s roadmap out of lockdown, PA Media reports.
The campaign also urges people to keep going with behavioural changes including mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing.
The television advert was being shown for the first time on ITV on Wednesday night, but the campaign will also run on radio, advertising billboards and social media:
Australia on Thursday continued its downward trend of Covid cases, stoking hopes of a faster return to normal, Reuters reports.
Victoria, the country’s second-most populous state, recorded no cases for nearly a week, suggesting the most recent outbreak in Melbourne has been contained, prompting authorities to flag easing of more restrictions soon.
“With six days of zero cases, with the number of active cases falling each day... we can be quite positive about making some announcements tomorrow,” state Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters when asked about lifting of curbs on gatherings.
Queensland state said it would open its borders to residents of Melbourne from Saturday, following South Australia which plans to lift its border restrictions from Friday.
New South Wales state reported no new local cases for the 39th day in a row as it looks to relax curbs on dancing at weddings, singing at indoor venues and gatherings at home from Friday.
Olympic torch audience asked to applaud rather than cheer passing runners
Justin McCurry
People who turn out to catch a glimpse of the Olympic torch after it begins its journey through Japan at the end of the next month will be asked to applaud, rather than cheer passing runners, and the event could be suspended if crowds lining the relay route grow too large.
The unusual provisions for the relay - the main precursor to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics - are another sign of the difficulties organisers are facing as they attempt to carry off an event involving tens of thousands of athletes, officials and journalists in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Tokyo Games organising committee said it would livestream the relay, due to begin in Fukushima on 25 March, to encourage people to watch it at home.
About 10,000 torchbearers will carry the prestigious symbol of the Games through Japan’s 47 prefectures, culminating in its arrival at the Olympic stadium on 23 July. One prefecture recently said it was reconsidering its involvement due to concerns over the virus.
“No shouting, no cheering. Please cheer by clapping your hands, and maintain an appropriate distance in case there is overcrowding,” Yukihiko Nunomura, the vice director general of the organising committee, told a media briefing on Thursday.
The rules were part of a series of measures for torchbearers and and other participants unveiled on the same day.
Singapore received its first batch of the Covid vaccine made by China’s Sinovac Biotech on Tuesday, its health ministry said, although the shot is still awaiting approval for use in the city-state, Reuters reports.
Sinovac has started submitting initial data but the Health Sciences Authority is currently awaiting all the necessary information to carry out a thorough assessment, the ministry said in a statement late on Wednesday.
Singapore is the only wealthy country considering the use of Sinovac’s vaccine, which has been found to have an efficacy rate ranging from about 50% to 90% in studies.
The city-state have been rolling out its Covid vaccination programme over the last two months. It has approved shots from Pfizer-BioNTech, and Moderna .
Podcast: No sex please, we’re British. Dating in a pandemic
Lockdown rules have left little opportunity for people who aren’t already living with a partner to pursue romantic relationships, explains Zoe Williams:
Australia's Olympians to be encouraged to take vaccine but Games will be 'safe'
Australia’s Olympics athletes will not be required to have a Covid-19 vaccination but will be encouraged to do so as planning ramps up for July’s delayed Tokyo Games, the Australian Associated Press reports.
IOC vice-president and AOC president John Coates said planning had reached the finite stage for the showpiece, set to begin one year later than first planned on 23 July:
China's Sinopharm vaccine 72.5% effective, company says
China is moving ahead with two more Covid vaccines in the regulatory process, one from state-owned company Sinopharm and another from a private company CanSino, AP reports.
Both vaccines have submitted been to regulators for approval this week.
CanSino said that Chinese regulators are reviewing its application for its Covid vaccine, in a stock filing on Wednesday.
Sinopharm’s subsidiary the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products announced Wednesday that it had submitted an application Sunday and that regulators were reviewing it.
China already has approved two vaccines that it has been using in a mass immunization campaign. One of them is also from Sinopharm, but it was developed by its Beijing subsidiary. The other is the Sinovac vaccine.
The Wuhan shot from Sinopharm is 72.51% effective, the company said. Both shots from Sinopharm rely on inactivated viruses, a traditional technology.
CanSino’s vaccine is a one-dose shot that relies on a harmless common cold virus, called an adenovirus, to deliver the spike gene of the virus into the body. The technology is similar to both Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccines, which rely on different adenoviruses.
CanSino’s vaccine is 65.28% effective, the company said Wednesday. Neither company has published its trial data in peer-reviewed scientific journals yet.
Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics will give promoting gender equality as high a priority as efforts to ensure a coronavirus-free Games, their head said on Wednesday.
Reuters: Seiko Hashimoto, admitting that the Covid epidemic had left many people worried heading towards the Games, said organisers planned to release detailed coronavirus guidelines on Thursday for the torch relay starting in late March.
Hashimoto was named president of the Tokyo 2020 Organising committee last week, replacing 83-year-old former prime minister Yoshiro Mori, who resigned after setting off a furore with sexist remarks.
Hashimoto said the organising committee had set up a gender equality promotion team and reiterated a goal to boost the proportion of women on its board to 40%.
“Even with limited time until the Games, we will work hard so people can look back and say this is a big turning point for Japan,” Hashimoto told reporters in reference to the new equality team.
She spoke after a meeting with the International Olympic Committee board, and as - in remarks unlikely to calm public concerns over the Olympics - the minister overseeing Japan’s vaccination programme told a separate event that the Games were not part of his planning.
About 1,000 Games volunteers have quit since early this month, while four torch runners resigned so far, according to the organising team.
Ikea’s UK business dived nearly £33m into the red last year after it was forced to close stores for nearly three months during the pandemic.
The world’s largest furniture retailer said UK sales fell more than 10% to £1.9bn in the year to 31 August, even though online sales increased by nearly a third.
Ikea admitted that it had struggled to meet demand for home deliveries despite turning stores into distribution centres for online orders during the high street lockdowns:
