Coronavirus: Canada suspends use of AstraZeneca shot for under-55s — as it happened

The pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the income and pension inequality women experience. Covid-19 kills more men than women, but the latter have taken a bigger economic hit. They have been more likely to be furloughed, and more likely to lose their jobs. They have taken on a disproportionate share of household tasks, childcare and home schooling. And the pandemic has worsened job prospects for older people, especially women.

Even without coronavirus, the UK economy relies on unpaid care, mostly by family and friends, both men and women. The charity Carers UK says that 12 per cent of the country’s population are informal carers. Of these, the majority — 58 per cent — are women and their peak age is 50-64. Some give up well-paid jobs to care for relatives full-time, while others juggle caring with unskilled, poorly paid work.

Carers’ income is pitiful: carers’ allowance pays £67.25 a week for those who provide more than 35 hours a week, far less than even universal credit, let alone the living wage for full-time work. So although carers receive national insurance credits, they are unable to build up the occupational pensions essential for a comfortable retirement. All too often, becoming a carer means the premature end of a woman’s well-paid career; for many, it means poverty in old age.

The UK government aims to keep younger women in the workforce by providing childcare. But there is no recognition of the need to keep older women in work through care for the elderly. Indeed, some proposals to “solve” the social care crisis envisage women taking on even more. A recent pamphlet from the think-tank Demos proposes that “families” should be primarily responsible for elderly care, and suggests that this could be a “career choice”. And, as the pandemic has shown, with demand for care at home growing, the greater burden has fallen on women.

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Two of Jair Bolsonaro’s top ministers offered to resign on the same day, highlighting Brazil’s struggle in dealing with an escalating second wave of Covid-19.

The country’s top diplomat, Ernesto Araújo, tendered his resignation on Monday, according to local media, following calls from lawmakers unhappy with efforts to acquire coronavirus vaccines from overseas.

Critics have partly blamed delays in deliveries of key vaccine ingredients from China on Araújo’s belligerent stance towards the Asian superpower, as well as attacking what they say is Brazil’s increasing international isolation under his watch.

Hours later he was followed by Fernando Azevedo e Silva, a reserve army general who held the defence brief. Brazilian media reported that the military man was requested to leave by the president.

If confirmed, it would mean three high-profile departures from Brazil’s executive within a matter of weeks, following the replacement of its health minister who had come under fire over a stuttering inoculation campaign.

The abrupt cabinet reshuffle comes as the Bolsonaro administration faces mounting political pressure to get a grip on the pandemic, which has claimed more than 310,000 lives in Latin America’s largest nation.

A surge in cases and fatalities in Brazil, where a more contagious strain of the virus is believed to be in wide circulation, has sparked international concern and led local business elites to urge the government for a more robust response.

Canada has suspended the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for younger adults as a “precautionary measure” following concerns in Europe the shot may be linked to rare blood clots.

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization said in a statement on Monday it recommended the AstraZeneca vaccine “should not be used in adults under 55 years of age at this time” while the shot’s role in potential “rare cases of serious blood clots” is investigated further.

Instances of these blood clots, recently reported in Europe in individuals who had taken the AstraZeneca shot, have “primarily” been in women under the age of 55 years, although some cases in men had occurred, Naci said in its statement. “The rate of this adverse event is still to be confirmed,” it said.

Supriya Sharma, Health Canada’s chief medical advisor, said at a press conference on Monday that authorities “still don’t have enough information” to say whether the risks outweigh the benefits for younger adults, but added that for people aged 80 years and older, “we see it is actually working pretty well.”

Canadian provinces including Manitoba and Prince Edward Island said they would immediately suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on younger adults.

Earlier this month, more than a dozen European countries paused or limited use of the AstraZeneca shot after a rare and severe combination of blood clots to the brain, a low platelet count and bleeding was observed in a limited number of patients. Some of the patients died. The UK also registered some of these cases but did not pause or limit the shot’s use.

The European Medicines Agency probed whether any link between the shot and the overall risk of blood clots existed, but determined there wasn’t one. Still, the regulator has left the door open to there being a possible link between the rare combination of side effects and the vaccine. Surveillance is continuing, but most countries have resumed administering the jab.

The pause dealt a severe blow to Europe’s ailing vaccination campaign, which lags behind that of the US and the UK. Throughout the crisis, both the EMA and the World Health Organization reiterated that the shot’s benefits outweighed its potential risks — even if a link between rare and serious blood clots and the shot is eventually demonstrated.

AstraZeneca has stressed its vaccine is safe and has been administered to millions across the world, with both real-world and clinical evidence showing it is safe and effective.

The Financial Times has been your guide to the pandemic since the first outbreak was detected. Here are some of the developments we reported a year ago today:

• China said the bulk of new infections in the country had come from overseas and the National Health Commission said domestic coronavirus transmission had “basically stopped”

• Indian migrants collapsed from heat and exhaustion as they began long walks home — often between 100km and 200km — after the sudden imposition of a 21-day lockdown. Prime Minister Narendra Modi defended the abrupt lockdown and asked citizens for forgiveness

• Singapore clamped down on rule-breakers and revoked a citizen’s passport for breaking border controls

• Australia imposed tighter curbs on public gatherings, introduced a six-month moratorium on convictions and said it would spend an extra A$1.1bn to support mental health, domestic violence and home medical care services during the crisis

• The global case-count surpassed 700,000 and the US was the most affected with 133,000 cases in total. The worldwide death toll surpassed 30,000, as total fatalities approached 11,000 in Italy. In New York, which was the centre of the pandemic in the US, fatalities approached 1,000

• Stephen Powis, NHS England medical director, said the UK would do well in the pandemic if it could keep its death toll below 20,000 on a day when the country’s death toll surpassed 1,200

• Jefferies chief financial officer Peg Broadbent died of coronavirus complications aged 56

• Donald Trump extended US social-distancing guidelines until the end of April

• US crude oil prices fell below $20 a barrel shortly after trading reopened on Sunday, close to the lowest level in 18 years

• Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, called for a “national emergency government” to combat the spread of coronavirus, saying such a move would free up $1.2bn in international loans and allow humanitarian aid into the country

For all the latest on the pandemic, visit the FT’s coronavirus home page

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, tweaked measures to curb the spread of coronavirus and warned the outbreak could threaten trade and a crucial tourism season.

The decision follows a more than tripling in new daily infections since the latest round of restrictions were eased less than a month ago. New cases recorded in the past 24 hours reached 32,404, the health ministry said, the highest number so far this year, while the overall death toll stands at 31,230.

The government’s vaccination programme has lagged behind its daily target and has been compounded by concerns Turkey has not yet received supplies it contracted from China’s Sinovac and BioNTech/Pfizer.

On Monday, public health workers began inoculating people over the age of 60 and those with certain comorbidities. About 15.2m vaccine shots have been administered, of which 6.7m are the second doses, according to the health ministry.

“If we cannot reduce the number of cases and deaths faster than the countries with which we have close personal and trade links, we will fall behind in the global normalisation process,” Erdogan said after a cabinet meeting. “The cost for our country, from commerce to tourism, will be grave.”

Erdogan said 80 per cent of Turkey’s population of 82m people live in the 58 provinces deemed “very high risk”, compared with 17 sparsely populated provinces that were regarded as very high risk on March 2. These provinces will enter a full weekend lockdown, instead of just on Sunday, and the entire country will be under a daily curfew between 9pm and 5am.

Restaurants across Turkey will be allowed to operate at 50 per cent capacity, but will have to halt indoor dining during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting that begins April 13, he said.

“Whenever the conditions permit, we are taking normalisation steps so our people who are sick of the restrictions can breathe and to open a path for our tradespeople who are in trouble,” he said. “Everyone’s police have to be their own conscience.”

All New Yorkers over the age of 30 will be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine from Tuesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced, before widening it to the general population by early April.

Starting at 8am tomorrow, all residents of the state will be eligible to schedule an appointment to receive their first jab, the governor said on Monday.

The state’s rollout will be expanded a week later, enabling all New Yorkers over the age of 16 to schedule an appointment for the shot.

The announcement results in New York joining a growing group of states that have committed to opening up eligibility to all adults before a May 1 target set by President Joe Biden.

California, Texas and Florida, the three states with bigger populations than New York, have also committed to broadening vaccine eligibility to all adults from April 15, March 29 and April 5, respectively.

New York has fully vaccinated 15.2 per cent of its population, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday, compared to the average of all US states of about 16.45 per cent.

A senior US health official said she felt a sense of “impending doom” about a new surge in coronavirus cases across America, even as the country rapidly ramps up vaccinations.

At a briefing on Monday, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said she feared the trajectory of infections was again taking the wrong turn, and warned against a premature loosening of social-distancing practices.

“We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now, I’m scared,” she said.

Walensky’s remarks will dash some of the optimism about America’s ability to rapidly bring an end to the pandemic as the pace of vaccinations accelerate and new stimulus enacted by Joe Biden pumps more government funding into the healthcare response. The US president last week announced that he expected 200m Covid-19 jabs to have been administered within his first 100 days in office — double his original target of 100m vaccinations.

After a brutal winter surge in coronavirus infections, the daily rate of new cases in the US dropped sharply in February, but that improvement stopped and cases have started to tick up again in recent weeks — raising alarm bells among the top health officials.

“When you’re coming down from a big peak and you reach a point and start to plateau, once you stay at that plateau, you’re really in danger of a surge coming up,” Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CBS News on Sunday. “And unfortunately, that’s what we’re starting to see.”

Boris Johnson has hailed a “small step to freedom” as England's lockdown was eased on Monday, but he said the country had to “proceed with caution”.

Johnson said millions of people had been able to enjoy “a cup of tea in the garden” with a friend or had taken outdoor exercise as part of the modest relaxation of lockdown rules.

The prime minister, speaking at a Downing Street press conference, urged people to keep coming forward for vaccines, saying that for many people “April will be second dose month”.

Johnson also confirmed that GlaxoSmithKline had agreed to fill and bottle a new Novavax vaccine at its Barnard Castle plant.

Chris Whitty, chief medical officer, said recent evidence showed that as the lifting of the lockdown continued it was younger people — who were likely not to have been vaccinated — who were most likely to “catch and transmit Covid”.

The coronavirus outbreak emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 and was “extremely unlikely” to have been the result of laboratory leak, according to a landmark World Health Organization investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

In a version of the report circulated to WHO member states and seen by the Financial Times, scientists said that the two most likely scenarios to explain the emergency of Covid-19 both involved the transmission of the virus from animals to humans. Estimates for when that occurred “ranged from late September to early December, but most estimates were between mid-November and early December,” it said.

The report, which is due to be released at a press conference on Tuesday, followed the visit in January of a WHO team to Wuhan, where coronavirus was first detected in 2019.

The scientists said that the probe had not provided definitive proof of exactly where and when Covid-19 originated but that the quality of the other studies suggesting the virus could been circulating even earlier in places such as France and Italy was “limited”.

“Some of the suspected positive samples were detected even earlier than the first case in Wuhan, suggesting the possibility of missed circulation in other countries,” the report said. “So far, however, the quality of the studies is limited. Nonetheless, it is important to investigate these potential early events.”

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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday extended its national ban on evictions by three months, preventing the removal of tenants who are unable to make rental payments.

Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, signed the extension. The moratorium is set to expire on June 30, two days before the protection was due to.

More than 10m Americans face housing insecurity and 5.4m face likelihood of eviction or foreclosure soon, according to the Census Household Pulse Survey conducted this month.

“Keeping people in their homes and out of crowded or congregate settings — like homeless shelters — by preventing evictions is a key step in helping to stop the spread of Covid-19,” the CDC said on Monday.

The $2.2tn Cares Act passed by the Trump administration had provided a 120-day moratorium on eviction filings in March.

The CDC in September prohibited evictions on renters who expected to earn less than $99,000 and couples on less than $198,000. The directive protects them from eviction if they missed rent because of a pandemic-related job loss.

Sterling rallied to a 13-month high against the euro, while Europe’s single currency was on track for some chunky monthly losses against its major peers.

The euro has shed nearly 6 per cent against the pound since the start of the year, sinking 0.4 per cent to 85.15p on Monday and buoying sterling to its strongest since February 2020.

The euro is on track to notch up its worst month since 2019, after shedding 2.5 per cent against the dollar in March.

The euro has been hit by the slow pace of vaccination in the eurozone while a rise in cases puts several countries in the region on track to tighten coronavirus restrictions. The UK on the other hand has accelerated its programme after it became the first country to start inoculating outside clinical trials. It has vaccinated about 30m people since December 8.

Sterling traded with a firm tone against the dollar, up 0.4 per cent to about $1.3843.

Leisure industry businesses hard hit by the winter lockdown have welcomed the lifting of restrictions in England.  

Mark Sesnan, chief executive of GLL, which runs the Better fitness chain, said the reopening of outdoor facilities was a “really exciting and overdue first step”. 

Of the group’s 250 sites, 80 have reopened some areas outdoors, with demand “very, very strong, particularly for the London outdoor pools,” Sesnan said.

However, he added, the company had burnt through £20m of its reserves in the past year and “desperately needed” to rebuild business as soon as possible.

Spain will drop its limits on flights and ferries from the UK, as well as land-border crossings from Gibraltar, as of 6pm on Tuesday.

The restrictions on flights and ferries from the UK, which limited entry to Spanish and Andorran nationals and residents, were put in place in late December to slow the spread of the B.1.1.7 variant of Covid-19 first detected in Kent.

After multiple two-week extensions, the restrictions will lapse on Tuesday. The government will end similar restrictions on land travel from Gibraltar at the same time.

Monday’s announcement comes as the vaccine drives in the UK and Gibraltar have far outpaced that of the EU. The UK has administered almost 50 jabs per 100 people, while the 27-nation bloc has administered just above 15. More than 90 per cent of Gibraltarians over the age of 16 have received both jabs, as have more than 2,300 of the cross-border workers who travel across the frontier regularly.

“Just as in the UK, today is our ‘happy Monday’ too,” Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, told the Financial Times. “We know we have never been luckier to be British. The UK's vaccination strategy has been a magnificent success which we have replicated here on our much smaller scale.”

Coronavirus rules mean it is illegal to leave the UK for a holiday, with only “reasonable excuses” making international travel possible.

Though Spain is easing restrictions on travelers entering from the UK and Gibraltar, on Monday it extended restrictions on non-essential travel from non-EU and non-Schengen countries until April 30.

Spain added that those entering from France will, as of Tuesday, have to provide a negative Covid-19 test taken within the past 72 hours. Similarly, travelers from the UK as well as EU regions rated as high risk must show a negative Covid test to enter.

Spain’s 14-day contagion rate had dropped to about 130 per 100,000 people before rebounding in recent days. 

India has celebrated Holi, its spring festival of colours, in the shadow of a second wave of coronavirus infections as it clocked up thousands more cases and hundreds of daily deaths.

The country has reported more than 68,204 infections and 295 Covid-19 deaths in its latest 24-hour figures. India’s active cases total 523,550, the highest level in four months, which add pressure on health systems worn down by the strain of the first year of the pandemic.

With few, if any, restrictions on business or activities in place, India’s second wave has progressed more rapidly than the first.

It has reported more than 1,875 coronavirus deaths over the past week, a 51 per cent increase over the previous period.

Holi is normally a joyful celebration with families and friends gathering in elevated numbers, playing with colour and water.

But in the run-up to festival, the government appealed to the public to act with restraint, and celebrate the holiday only with their families in their own home.

India has launched an ambitious vaccination programme but progress has been slow with about 60m doses administered, or about 4 per cent of the population.

The western state of Maharashtra, home of the financial capital Mumbai and the region hardest hit by the second wave, is said to be planning for renewed restrictions, and possibly another lockdown, to arrest the accelerating spread.

Of all the cases detected in India on Sunday, more than 40,400 were in Maharashtra.

The African Union has signed a deal with Johnson & Johnson to supply 220m doses of its single-shot Covid-19 vaccine to the group's 55 member states starting in the third quarter of this year.

The extra doses will bolster efforts by the World Heath Organization and Gavi-backed Covax initiative, which plan to supply the continent with hundreds of millions doses. The rollout in most African countries has begun in the past few weeks.

The deal between J&J's Janssen Pharmaceutica and the AU's African Vaccine Acquisition Trust can be expanded to an extra 180m doses in 2022. 

J&J last year signed an advanced purchase deal to supply 500m doses to Covax. But the initiative took a hit last week when India barred vaccine exports, including the AstraZeneca jab produced by the Serum Institute of India, which is a major supplier for the programme.

Africa has been less affected by the pandemic than other parts of the world. The continent has recorded 4.19m cases and 112,000 deaths from a population of about 1.2bn.

More than nine in 10 people over 70 in England have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, though the figure masks disparities in inoculations among different ethnic and religious groups. 

The percentage of people vaccinated is lower “among all ethnic minority groups compared to the white British population”, the Office for National Statistics said on Monday, with the lowest rates observed among people who identify as black African, 59 per cent of whom had received at least one jab between December 8 and March 11.

The next lowest rates were observed among people identifying as black Caribbean at 69 per cent, followed by those from Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds at about 74 per cent.

Vaccination rates differed by religious affiliation, with the lowest rates found among those who identified as Muslim at 72 per cent.

Ben Humberstone, head of Health and Life Events at the ONS, said the differences remained “after accounting for geography, underlying health conditions and certain indicators of socio-economic inequality”.

The ONS noted that those living in more deprived areas were less likely to have been vaccinated than those living in less deprived areas.

Disabled people who reported “being limited a lot in their day-to-day activities” had lower rates of vaccination at 87 per cent compared with 91 per cent for the non-disabled.

UK households deposited another £17.1bn into bank accounts last month, adding to hopes that accumulated savings can help the economy recover as coronavirus-induced lockdown rules are eased.

Deposits in February recorded by the Bank of England compared with a pre-pandemic monthly average of £4.6bn in 2019 and bring cumulative household savings since last March to more than £180bn.

Many economists say the cash could boost the UK recovery if it is spent once shops, restaurants and other businesses reopen. However, other economists note that savings are largely in the hands of wealthier households, limiting the expected boost.

An inflatable flamingo accompanies a swimmer at Hillingdon lido in west London as regulars take advantage of a loosening of England’s lockdown rules.

Outdoor pools were among the sports facilities allowed to reopen on Monday, along with golf courses and tennis courts.

But the public was being urged to remain cautious to prevent another wave of coronavirus.

Kenya’s Equity Bank’s pretax profit fell 30 per cent on the back of rising loan provisions as the coronavirus pandemic hit one of the largest financial companies by market capitalisation in east and central Africa.

Equity Group Holdings said on Monday that the bank’s full-year profit declined to Ksh22.2bn ($202m) from Ksh31.5bn a year earlier while gross provisions for bad loans jumped to Ksh26.6bn from Ksh5.3bn in 2019.

The world has had “to re-learn, adapt and adjust, making 2020 an exceedingly difficult and challenging year”, said James Mwangi, chief executive of the bank, which operates also in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and has a foothold in Ethiopia.

Equity reported a 51 per cent jump in its balance sheet in 2020, with total assets yawning to Ksh1,015bn up from Ksh674bn the previous year.

The bank has become “the first financial institution to cross the trillion shillings rubicon in east and central Africa”, Equity said in a statement. It last year bought a majority stake in the Banque Commerciale Du Congo, the oldest bank in the DRC, for $95m.

Net interest income grew by 23 per cent to Ksh55.1bn last year, from Ksh45bn in 2019 after customer loans rose 30 per cent to Ksh477.8bn.

President Uhuru Kenyatta said Kenya's economy suffered an about $5bn blow last year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

UK ministers are drawing up plans to let employers use Covid-19 certificates for staff working in office buildings once most people are vaccinated later in the year, according to officials and industry figures.

The move comes after 12 months of remote working for most white-collar workers in the UK, with chancellor Rishi Sunak among those emphasising the benefits of people working closely with colleagues in person.

Last week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested pub landlords could look to restrict customers if they do not have proof of either vaccination, antibodies or a recent test for Covid-19.

Establishments using such “certificates” would be able to abandon social distancing and pack in more customers, under plans being considered in a review by Michael Gove, Cabinet Office minister.

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The public should be “sensible” as lockdown restrictions are eased in England and take particular care to avoid meeting friends indoors, the tourism minister has said.

In the latest relaxation of coronavirus restrictions, two households or groups of up to six people are now able to meet outside. Sports venues including open-air swimming pools and golf courses are also reopening.

“Today is a really big day for millions of people, dying to get back to the things that they love,” Nigel Huddleston told Sky News.

“These are significant steps, but they’re cautious, baby steps,” he said. “It’s not indoors yet, so please be sensible… It’s very much about outdoors and open space.”

A national “stay at home” order has been rescinded, allowing people to travel across the country to visit friends and family outdoors.

“It is allowed … but if people are travelling they need to think very carefully about how they travel,” Huddleston said. He called on people to fill up petrol and buy food locally before their trips.

He expected a large degree of self-policing but “if there are breaches, the police can intervene and fine”.

The United Arab Emirates is targeting annual capacity of 200m for the domestic production of its coronavirus vaccine in partnership with China’s Sinopharm CNBG.

G42, a technology group with links to Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, on Monday said it would launch a research and development hub with Sinopharm for life sciences, biotechnology and vaccine production in Kizad, a logistics hub in the emirate.

The vaccine plant will in phases reach a capacity of 200m doses a year, using three filling lines and five automated packaging lines.

G42 said the joint venture was already producing the vaccine, named Hayat-Vax, with its partner Julphar, a Ras Al Khaimah-based pharmaceuticals manufacturer, with an initial capacity of 2m doses a month. Julphar on Sunday announced that it had a contract to produce the Sinopharm vaccine for G42.

Hayat-Vax is the same Sinopharm inactivated vaccine registered by the UAE in December, which has become the workhorse of its national vaccination campaign.

The UAE has inoculated more than half of the target population, delivering 82 doses per 100 people, second only to Israel among populous nations.

The vaccine manufacturing announcements came with a visit to the UAE by Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, highlighting closer bilateral relations through the pandemic.

Friends and family in England will be allowed to meet outdoors in groups of up to six as the country eases its coronavirus restrictions.

The latest step in the government's four-stage “roadmap” out of lockdown relaxes the stay at home rule. Advice remains to limit travel where possible and avoid journeys at peak hours. 

Up to two households can meet in private gardens, while outdoor sports can go ahead and open-air swimming pools can open. The first step was children returning to school this month. Most international travel remains banned.

Chief medical officer Chris Whitty said "the evidence is very clear that outdoor spaces are safer than indoors. It is important to remember this as we move into the next phase".

Prime minister Boris Johnson in February set out a “cautious” strategy for restoring normal life and economic activity by June 21. Progress along what he described as a "one-way road to freedom" is conditional on the successful rollout of vaccines, falling hospitalisation rates and the emergence of new Covid-19 variants.

More than 30m first doses of vaccine have been administered across the UK, government figures show. Cabinet minister Oliver Dowden said over the weekend that Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine would be rolled out in the UK from next month.

Energy suppliers are refusing to renew gas and electricity contracts for pubs or forcing publicans on to higher rates while they renegotiate terms, as they limit exposure to a sector still facing huge uncertainty after a year of on-off lockdowns. 

About 30,000 pubs are facing contract renewal rejections or more expensive off-contract tariffs, the British Beer and Pub Association estimates. 

Harry Webb-Jeffries, who took over the Valiant Sailor pub near Folkestone in Kent five days before the second national lockdown in November, said he had been refused contracts by every big supplier except Utilita and he was now paying £400 more a month for energy than the previous tenant.

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Vietnam’s gross domestic product rose nearly 4.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2021 on the back of higher exports, the south-east Asian nation’s statistics office reported on Monday.

The figure was below the 5.1 per cent forecast by the government as a Covid-19 cluster in northern Vietnam, around Hanoi, the capital, weighed on economic activity.

Overall exports for the January-March quarter rose to $77.3bn, up 22 per cent from a year earlier. The value of goods sold to the US rose almost 33 per cent year on year.

Analysts have long had doubts about the accuracy of Vietnam’s quarterly GDP figures, which are released before the end of the quarter.

“But growth is broadly consistent with the monthly figures for trade, industrial production and retail sales,” said Gareth Leather, senior Asia economist at Capital Economics. 

The main obstacle to the country’s economic recovery was the outbreak of the virus, he said, but containment measures and localised lockdowns have largely been lifted. 

Restaurants resumed operations in Hanoi at the start of March, while nightclubs and bars reopened last week.

“As such, the economy is likely already bouncing back,” said Leather.

The outlook for Vietnam’s export sector was also upbeat. 

“Vietnam has been one of the main beneficiaries of the abrupt change in global consumption patterns brought about by the pandemic, which has led to an increase in demand for consumer goods, especially electronics, but also furniture,” Leather added.

The world faces severe problems of debt sustainability in the wake of the coronavirus crisis that have not been properly understood or addressed, and which threaten to tip developing countries into a rising wave of hunger, poverty, social unrest and conflict, the UN secretary-general has warned. 

“The response to Covid and to the financial aspects [of the crisis] has been fragmented, and geopolitical divides are not helping,” António Guterres told the Financial Times. “It has been too limited in scope and too late.” 

Guterres said the fact that only six countries had defaulted on their foreign debts last year — Argentina, Belize, Ecuador, Lebanon, Suriname and Zambia — had created the “illusion” of stability and a “misperception of the seriousness of the situation”.

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Canada’s belated vaccine rollout is already showing results, the country’s chief medical officer said on Sunday.

The government of Justin Trudeau, prime minister, has been criticised for not securing enough vaccines to inoculate the country of 37m people.

Doug Ford, premier of Ontario, the most populous province, described the federal government’s rollout on Friday as a “joke”.

But Theresa Tam, the country’s top medic, said the programme “continues to ramp up across the country”.

She said almost 1.4m doses of Covid-19 vaccines arrived in Canada last week.

“With fewer infections in those over 80 years of age, along with decreased outbreaks in long-term care settings, we are seeing the real-world benefits of vaccinations,” Tam said in a statement. 

Canada administered about 1.3m doses last week, according to Health Canada.

Those jabs brought the total number of vaccines administered to just over 4.8m as of Friday — up from 3.5m doses the previous week.

Australia’s third-largest city will enter a three-day lockdown from Monday after health officials reported four more locally transmitted Covid-19 cases.

Annastacia Palaszczuk, premier of Queensland, of which Brisbane is the state capital, said there were now seven cases reported of the Covid-19 strain first identified in the UK. 

“There are now more community transmissions and these people have been out and about,” said Palaszczuk. “It is the UK strain — it is highly infectious.”

A stay-at-home order is in force for greater Brisbane — which includes Logan, Moreton Bay, Ipswich and Redlands — and outdoor activities are limited to trips for food, exercise, essential work and medical reasons.

For other parts of Queensland, a state almost three times the size of Texas, mask-wearing in public is mandatory and private gatherings are limited to 30 people.

UK music festivals, concerts and other leisure events planned for this summer risk being scrapped as a result of a government failure to underwrite cancellation insurance, the industry has warned.

Insurance industry experts, tour promoters and event organisers warned that unless the government followed others in Europe and offered to insure events against Covid-19 cancellations, many would not go ahead, costing billions in lost economic activity. 

Organisers of the Belladrum Tartan Heart music festival, which was due to be held near Inverness in July, announced a one-year postponement on Thursday, specifically citing the government’s failure to back an insurance scheme.

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The Turkish government announced on Sunday that it had donated some of its Covid-19 vaccines to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

About 30,000 doses of the Chinese-made Sinovac jab arrived in Sarajevo by air ambulance, the Anadolu news agency reported.

The vaccine donation was pledged by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, during a visit by Bosnian leaders to Ankara on March 16.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has ordered 1.2m doses of vaccines under the international Covax facility. About 23,400 doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine and 26,400 doses of the AstraZeneca jab have been delivered.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has reported 162,032 coronavirus cases and 6,220 fatalities.

Turkey reported more than 29,000 cases on Sunday, pushing the total to more than 3.2m since the start of the pandemic. There have been 31,076 deaths, the health ministry said.

South Korea said on Monday it would ban eating at mass gathering facilities, such as stadiums, libraries and museums, as health authorities struggle to contain continued cluster infections at religious facilities and workplaces.

Eating would be prohibited at 21 types of public facilities, including karaoke bars, public saunas and cinemas. Violators would be fined Won100,000 ($88) from next Monday after a one-week grace period, officials said.

Health authorities are calling for stringent efforts to follow containment rules, including requiring bars to ensure all customers’ QR codes are scanned, while mass gathering facilities must keep a register of every visitor.

The country reported 384 cases of Covid-19 on Monday, raising the total caseload to 102,141, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. 

Four deaths were announced, increasing the death toll to 1,726.

The United Arab Emirates recorded more than 2,000 Covid-19 cases for the sixth consecutive day on Sunday, as educators polled parents about whether schools should resume next month.

The Ministry of Health and Prevention announced 2,128 coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of recorded cases in the UAE to 455,197.

Four more deaths due to Covid-19 complications were identified, bringing the total number of fatalities in the Gulf nation to 1,481.

UAE education authorities are surveying teachers and parents about whether to continue distanced education or restart in-person learning in the third semester, which is due to begin on April 18.

Most public schools in the UAE continued with remote learning during the second semester, which began in January.

The Emirates Foundation for School Education said it would collate results for each school.

Authorities have not said whether a decision would rest on the poll results.

Hong Kong recorded no local infections over the weekend, the first time it has done so in four months, the city’s health officials announced.

The single infection reported on Sunday was imported, as were six recorded the previous day, the Centre for Health Protection said in a statement.

Hong Kong last recorded zero local cases on November 16 2020, about a week before the city’s fourth wave of infections. 

As of Sunday, the tally of confirmed infections in the Chinese region of 7.5m stood at 11,448.

A total of 229 cases were recorded in the 14 days to March 26, including 153 local transmissions, of which 33 were from unknown sources, the CHP reported.

Over the past week, the city has recorded between one and 10 local cases a day, only a few of which were untraceable.

The John Lewis store in Sheffield has a history back to 1847 — and locals are not taking its planned closure lightly. The site on the old Cole Brothers building is one of eight of the group’s department stores singled out to remain closed when the current UK lockdown ends.

“Piss poor by John Lewis,” was the blunt response to the Sheffield closure from Pete McKee, a well-known local artist, who warned the decision would be “another nail in the city centre’s coffin”. Hundreds of others took to social media pledging never to shop with the group again.

The challenge for John Lewis and many others is not just shoring up profitability as they emerge from the pandemic, but of working out how many stores they need now that shoppers have shown an increasing willingness to transact online.

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Clinical trials of the Covid-19 jab made by US-based Novavax have begun in India, the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer announced at the weekend.

The Novavax jab will be trialled in a partnership with the Indian Council of Medical Research, said Adar Poonawalla, Serum Institute of India chief executive.

He said he hoped the jab would launch commercially in September.

ICMR said the first volunteers for the phase 2 and 3 trials had been recruited.

Poonawalla said the Novavax jab had been successfully tested against variants of Covid-19 that were identified in the UK and South Africa.

The jab had an overall efficacy of 89 per cent, he added.

The Philippine National Police said at the weekend they had been forced to convert a sports centre at the force’s headquarters into a temporary quarantine centre for officers stricken with Covid-19.

General Debold Sinas, the Philippines’ national police chief, said 55 beds were put into operation at Camp Crame in Quezon City by reconfiguring tennis courts and a pool pavilion.

He said more quarantine facilities would be needed.

Almost 14,000 national police officers in the Philippines have contracted Covid-19, the law enforcement agency announced, and 37 officers have died.

The most recent fatality was a 45-year-old policeman assigned to the National Capital Region office, whose death was announced on Sunday. 

The number of active Covid-19 cases within the force reached 1,951 as of March 25, a rise of 447 in a week.

The Hong Kong government said at the weekend that it hoped to resume BioNTech jabs within a week after suspending them because of packaging faults.

Initial investigations by the German biotechnology company did not show any “obvious systemic factors” during packaging.

Use of the vaccine was suspended in the city and in neighbouring Macau last week. Hong Kong authorities said loose and twisted vial caps might have resulted from the vaccine’s transit from Germany.

Last Wednesday, applications of the vaccine were suddenly halted, leaving many Hong Kong residents confused. The city offers the BioNTech and the China-made Sinovac jabs.

The German vaccine is distributed in China, including in Hong Kong and Macau, by Shanghai-based Fosun Pharmaceuticals.

“The government is actively following up with Fosun and German manufacturer BioNTech to strive to complete the investigation procedures within a week,” authorities said in a statement. 

“The government will also keep close liaison with the supplier on the supply of the remaining doses of vaccine, with a view to ensuring that implementation of the vaccination programme in Hong Kong can be continued,” the statement said.

The government said on Sunday that 462,400 doses of Covid-19 vaccines had been administered. 

Of the 443,900 people who have received their first dose, about 292,600 had received the Sinovac jab and 151,300 the BioNTech vaccine. 

About 18,500 people have received their second dose of the Sinovac vaccine.

The fall late last week in global bond markets after weak demand for a $62bn auction in seven-year US debt was the latest sign of how the pandemic has caused jitters among investors. 

Yields, which move in the opposite direction to prices, for 10-year Treasury bonds rose as investors sold off on growing expectations of vaccine-fuelled economic growth and an ensuing rise in inflation, which makes debt less attractive. 

The US picture was echoed in the UK, where economic prospects have also been buoyed by a successful vaccination programme. Investors in government bonds have seen returns fall 6.5 per cent his year, a first-quarter performance that is likely to be the worst since 2000. 

Read the latest Coronavirus Business Update

In a bid to persuade more elderly Indonesians to undergo a Covid-19 inoculation, the government announced that younger people accompanying seniors to vaccination centres would also be eligible for jabs.

Government spokesperson Reisa Broto Asmoro said at the weekend the move was to encourage Indonesians over 60 to be vaccinated.

She said people should bring proof of identity and residence. “For the elderly who seek routine treatment for chronic disease, bring a letter of recommendation from a specialist.”

According to the FT’s global vaccine tracker, Indonesia has administered the 10th-most doses in the world, at 10.4m, as of Saturday.

However, the country trails on a per-capita basis, with just 3.9 people per 100 vaccinated.

Last week, Indonesia took delivery of a shipment of 16m doses made by Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech, bringing the total number of shots the country has received to 53.3m.

On March 20, Indonesia’s drug regulator approved the jab developed by Oxford/AstraZeneca, of which it has stockpiled 1.1m doses through the World Health Organization-backed Covax initiative. 

India’s decision last week to impose an export embargo on Covid-19 vaccines will hold up further deliveries of the AstraZeneca jab, said Budi Gunadi Sadikin, health minister.

The United Arab Emirates will start producing the Chinese Sinopharm Covid-19 vaccine from April, helping the Gulf state accelerate plans to supply coronavirus jabs around the world.

Gulf Pharmaceutical Industries, also known as Julphar, said on Sunday it had signed a contract with Abu Dhabi’s G42 to make the vaccine, which was trialled in the UAE and has since driven the country’s successful vaccination campaign.

The UAE, which began administering the jab to healthcare professionals in September 2020, became the first country to approve the Sinopharm jab for general use in December, saying it was 86 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19.

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Facebook has frozen the account of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro after he used it to promote a concoction made out of herbs which he said was a “miraculous” cure for coronavirus.

The social media platform told Reuters it had removed a video from Maduro’s page and that because of repeated violations of its rules, it was “freezing the page for 30 days, during which it will be read-only”.

“We follow guidance from the [World Health Organization] that says there is currently no medication to cure the virus,” a Facebook spokesman said.

Maduro has repeatedly promoted a medicine called Carvativir, which is made out of thyme and other herbs and is supposed to ease muscle pain. He often holds up little bottles of it in his news conferences.

In one briefing, he claimed Carvativir “neutralises coronavirus 100 per cent” and described the remedy, which is taken orally, as “the miraculous drops of José Gregorio Hernández”, a Venezuelan doctor who died a century ago and who is revered in the country.

Without providing evidence, Maduro said the medicine had been subjected to trials for nine months and had cured people who were seriously ill.

Last month he complained that Facebook was interfering in Venezuelan affairs and attacked Mark Zuckerberg, its chief executive, as a “tremendous abuser”.

Facebook has previously taken action against other world leaders including Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and former US president Donald Trump.

The Philippines on Monday put the Manila metropolitan region and four nearby provinces under the strictest form of lockdown in an effort to contain a sharp surge in new coronavirus infections. 

The week-long “enhanced community quarantine” will require most people to remain at home under daytime movement restrictions and a 6pm to 5am curfew, with exceptions made for construction work, public transport and office workers, or those accessing essential goods and services. 

The lockdown will affect Manila, the national capital, and adjoining Laguna, Rizal, Cavite and Bulacan provinces. 

It coincides with Holy Week in the mostly Roman Catholic nation, but religious services will be banned, along with other mass gatherings. 

Authorities took action after three consecutive days when the country recorded more than 9,000 new cases. 

President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration faces growing criticism for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has resulted in more than 721,000 reported cases and at least 13,170 deaths in a country of 110m people.

Jamaica launched its first mass vaccination blitz at the weekend, with residents aged 75 or older as its initial target.

Chris Tufton, minister of health and wellness, said 70 doctors as well as public health nurses and community health aides were on hand at the National Arena in Kingston. 

More than 600 people were jabbed, Tufton said.

He said the blitz was the first of its kind in the Caribbean island and that the government planned to hold more of them.

“The intention is to have them in every parish over an extended period of time, once we have the vaccines, so that we can do, as quickly as possible, more of the population,” Tufton said. 

As of March 25, 33,642 people on the island of 3m — mostly health workers and the elderly — had received the first dose of the Covid-19 jab made by AstraZeneca since vaccinations began three weeks ago. 

European governments have warned that their hospitals are at risk of being overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases as leaders struggle to get a grip on the pandemic after a week of ill-conceived lockdown measures and recriminations over the EU’s slow vaccine rollout.

German health authorities warned that the third wave of coronavirus infections could be the worst, pushing intensive care units to “breaking point”.

Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute, the government agency leading the fight against the pandemic, said stopping the wave was impossible but he called on people to reduce contacts to prevent spiralling infection rates. 

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China’s Sinovac Biotech delivered 1m vaccines to El Salvador on Sunday, in the Central American country’s first purchase of Covid-19 jabs.

“The vaccines are already in the air and will arrive first thing tomorrow morning,” Nayib Bukele, the country’s president, wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

On March 11, El Salvador received 33,600 doses of vaccines through the international Covax facility, a joint effort between the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations, the UN Children’s Fund, Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization.

El Salvador is one of 92 countries eligible to receive vaccines at no cost through Covax.

The Sinovac jabs are part of a purchase of 2m-doses by El Salvador.

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, regarded by the US and other nations as the country’s rightful president, has tested positive for coronavirus.

The 37-year-old confirmed the news on Twitter, saying his symptoms were mild and he was in isolation.

Guaidó, who with Washington’s support has been locked in a battle for over two years to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power, said it was imperative that Venezuela obtain more vaccines.

The Maduro government said it had secured millions of doses of Russia’s Sputnik V and China’s Sinopharm vaccines but so far the vaccine rollout has been slow.

The Guaidó-led opposition said it was talking to the government to reach an agreement for more doses to be brought into the country via the Covax initiative backed by the World Health Organization.

The vaccines would be paid for using money in frozen Venezuelan bank accounts in the US.

Venezuela, with a population of 28m, has received just 700,000 vaccine doses, of which 500,000 were donated by China’s Sinopharm and the rest by the Russia.

In the vanguard of the Olympic torch relay came a convoy of sponsor trucks, blaring a J-Pop version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” and urging the crowd to give their support. It was followed by a phalanx of police. 

Then, just in case anybody was tempted to get excited or have fun, there was a loudspeaker truck to warn them off. “The torch relay will arrive in three minutes. Please clap but do not cheer. Clap but do not cheer!” it exhorted. 

When the torchbearer eventually trotted by in the Fukushima city of Iwaki, few of the modest crowd even bothered to applaud. Security officials, wearing sandwich boards to demand face masks and 2m of social distancing, monitored the silence approvingly.

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Panama’s government said it would temporarily suspend entry of people who have been in any South American country in the previous 15 days.

The move came after health authorities in the Central American nation detected a local case of the Covid-19 strain first identified in Brazil.

The health ministry said the restrictions would apply from Wednesday. 

“We temporarily suspend the entry into the country of any person who has stayed or transited through any South American country in the last 15 days,” the ministry wrote on Twitter.

Panamanian nationals and residents are exempted but must provide proof of a negative test for Covid-19 and undergo quarantine.

The EU has delivered more than 50,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to Moldova, the European Commission said on Sunday.

The eastern European country, which is not a member of the bloc, obtained the jabs through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, under which the commission pays 75 per cent of transport costs.

“The EU continues to support its neighbours in the fight against the pandemic,” said Janez Lenarcic, EU crisis management commissioner.

Lenarcic said Romania requested the vaccines on behalf of neighbouring Moldova.

The commission said it would also send 1.2m items of personal protective equipment to north Macedonia and Montenegro.

Unexpected sweeping cuts in government science spending will wreck ministers’ ambition to make Britain a “science superpower”, cost jobs and damage the global battle against Covid-19, research leaders and politicians have warned. 

All four UK national academies and both parliamentary science and technology committees have urged Boris Johnson, prime minister, and Rishi Sunak, chancellor, to address multiple science funding crises that threaten to undermine important policy ambitions.

The immediate short-term threat is a 70 per cent reduction for 2021-22 in research funded through official development assistance, resulting from deep cuts in foreign aid.

Read more here

New York state is experiencing a surge in coronavirus infections, as the state remains one of four without a plan to rollout vaccines to all adults.

The state health department on Sunday recorded 9,395 new cases in the previous 24 hours, continuing a weeklong surge.

While far below peaks in January of 10,000-16,000 new cases a day, the number of daily new infections has risen steadily from 6,308 on March 23.

There were 64 deaths, bringing the state's total to 49,601.

Of the state’s 19.5m people, nearly 8.9m have been vaccinated, according to the office of Andrew Cuomo, the state governor. He said 194,837 jabs were administered in the previous 24 hours.

More than 29 per cent of New York residents have had at least one dose of vaccine, with more than 16 per cent fully vaccinated.

While 46 US states have said they would meet President Joe Biden’s directive to make all adults eligible by May 1, New York, along with Arkansas, still had not declared a timeline for their residents by Sunday.

Authorities in Wyoming and South Carolina have not announced timelines but have said they would meet the target.

London-listed Open Orphan, a specialist in antiviral testing using human challenge clinical trials, said a subsidiary had signed a deal with a US biotechnology company to run a human viral challenge study for respiratory syncytial virus.

The US company is developing a product for the prevention and treatment of acute and chronic RSV infections, it said. 

RSV is a contagious virus that affects the respiratory tract. The company said it lowers immunity and increases the risk of developing Covid-19.

“Where these infections occur together, it can worsen the severity of Covid-19 illness,” Open Orphan said in a stock exchange filing. 

Under the terms of the £7.5m deal, Open Orphan subsidiary hVIVO would conduct a study on behalf of its client to demonstrate the efficacy of their candidate against RSV infection. 

The 20-second Covid-19 saliva test developed by a UK company in 2020 has been approved for sale by the medical products regulator, the company said.

TT Electronics, which manufactures the Virolens screening test, said the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority approved the registration on Friday.

Bedfordshire-based iAbra developed the test, which uses a mouth swab to extract saliva which is then analysed to identify the virus. 

The results are delivered in just 20 seconds, the company said.

The test was trialled last year at London’s Heathrow airport, which the company said was one of its first customers. 

The company said a division of US defence company Lockheed Martin was another customer, and it is in talks with other multinationals.

Poland goalkeeper Łukasz Skorupski tested positive for Covid-19, PZPN, the country’s football association, announced at the weekend.

The Bologna player was tested after reporting he had a fever. 

Poland manager Paulo Sousa said Cracovia’s Karol Niemczycki would replace Skorupski for forthcoming matches against Andorra and England.

The US Department of Justice said it had charged 474 people with criminal offences related to the coronavirus pandemic, involving attempts to obtain more than $569m through  fraud.

The charges relate to violations of the Paycheck Protection Program, Economic Injury Disaster Loan programme and unemployment insurance, Merrick Garland, US attorney-general, said in a statement.

The cases have been brought in 56 jurisdictions within the US, the department said in a March 26 update.

“The Department of Justice has led a historic enforcement initiative to detect and disrupt Covid-19 related fraud schemes,” Garland said. 

He described the alleged offenders as “those who would exploit a national emergency to steal taxpayer-funded resources from vulnerable individuals and small businesses”.

The department said it had anticipated fraudulent claims after the Congress passed a $2.2tn economic relief bill known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act designed to provide emergency financial assistance to millions of Americans suffering the economic effects caused by the pandemic.

“The multifaceted and multi-district approach to enforcement during this national health emergency continues and is expected to yield numerous additional criminal and civil enforcement actions in the coming months,” Garland said.

Almost 49m Americans have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, as several states prepare to offer shots to all adults in the coming weeks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the US had administered 136.7m doses overall since the rollout began in December, with 89.6m Americans receiving at least one dose. 

Germany has designated France, Slovakia and the Czech Republic as “high incidence areas” from Sunday onwards and will require visitors to present a negative coronavirus test to enter. The decision to move France into the high-risk category has raised concerns on both sides of the border.

An extra 100m children failed to learn basic reading skills as a result of the disruptions caused by coronavirus in 2020, reversing two decades of progress and triggering a “learning loss” that could take 10 years from which to recover, according to Unesco estimates. Schools around the world closed for an average of 25 weeks last year.

French President Emmanuel Macron came under fire from political opponents on Friday over his refusal to take the blame for the recent surge in Covid-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm hospital intensive care units in Paris and the north. The government finally locked down nearly a third of the country a week ago.

Cruise operator Cunard will limit its summer tours of the British coastline to vaccinated UK residents, the company has announced. Cunard said on Friday that only people who had waited a week after receiving their second dose of an approved Covid-19 vaccine would be allowed aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth. 

The Serum Institute of India blamed a fire at its plant for delayed commercial shipments of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccines weeks before New Delhi imposed a de facto ban on exports of doses to expand its vaccination drive. SII chief executive Adar Poonawalla warned that “a fire at one of our buildings has caused obstacles to … expansion”.

A vaccine factory in the Netherlands at the centre of a spat between London and Brussels has been given the go ahead by the European Medicines Agency to begin supplying Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs to the EU. The EMA said on Friday that the Leiden factory — run by subcontractor Halix — had been approved for production and export.

UK engineers Smiths increased its half-year dividend after a pandemic-induced increase in demand for semiconductor testing cushioned a drop in industrial sales. The FTSE 100 group raised its dividend to 11.7p, up from 11p over a year ago, after beating expectations on headline operating profit, which slipped 6 per cent to £166m.