Coronavirus: Georgia pauses J&J vaccine at one site following adverse reactions — as it happened

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:

• European stocks took a positive turn at the market open, as investors weighed up hopes that coronavirus could be approaching its peak in some of the worst-hit parts of the world    

• The US reported a total of 1,906 deaths, at the time close to a quarter of the global daily death daily tally

• Christine Lagarde appealed to the eurozone’s governments to “support each other” as they face what the president of the European Central Bank called “one of the greatest macroeconomic cataclysms of modern times”

• New Delhi, Mumbai and other parts of India made it compulsory for people to wear face masks when stepping outside

• The UK's culture secretary suggested the public should prepare for an extension of the three-week coronavirus lockdown

• The UK reported that deaths from the coronavirus pandemic rose by almost 900 over the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to just below 8,000

• Singapore reported 287 new confirmed cases, taking the country’s total to 1,910

• The Federal Reserve provided an additional $2.3tn in loans to shore up the US economy, setting up new facilities to deliver credit to small businesses and municipalities and expanding measures introduced in March to back corporate debt markets

• A labour market survey revealed Canada suffered its biggest monthly loss of jobs as the economy shed more than a million positions during March

• Germany became the first country in the world to carry out large-scale antibody testing for coronavirus, to help show how many people are immune to the disease

• South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa extended the country’s lockdown by two weeks until the end of April  

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

A few weeks ago, doctors in Michigan hospitals began noticing their intensive care units were filling up again with coronavirus patients — something they had hoped the state’s high level of vaccinations would have prevented.

Unlike in earlier waves of the virus, the patients being admitted were largely young adults, laid low by a disease many of them thought would not cause them serious problems.

The state is now the epicentre of a regional surge in infections which experts warn could become yet another national wave if not contained. Doctors say it is also a warning to the rest of the country not to relax restrictions before a larger section of the population has been vaccinated, especially as new virus variants become dominant.

“If you are in Michigan right now, the next wave has already started,” Dr Walid Gellad, associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said. “Hospitalisations are rising at the same rate they did before and it is very concerning.”

Covid-19 infections have been dropping broadly across the US since their January peak as the weather has got warmer, encouraging people outside, and the country’s vaccination programme has accelerated.

But public health officials have warned in recent weeks that there could be another wave of the disease before the country reaches so-called “herd immunity” — the point where so many people have antibodies that the virus cannot easily spread.

Read more here.

Georgia is pausing the use of Johnson & Johnson doses at one vaccination site in the state after several people experienced adverse reactions to the shot.

“Out of an abundance of caution”, Georgia’s health department and the North Health District have halted the use of the J&J vaccine at the Cummings Fairground site, located about 63km north from downtown Atlanta.

Although use of the J&J vaccine is not being paused at other sites around Georgia, the pause interrupts a vaccine rollout that is among the slowest in the country.

Of the 425 people who received J&J doses at the site on Wednesday, eight experienced adverse reactions, Georgia’s health department said in an emailed statement to the Financial Times. One person was evaluated at a hospital, while the others were monitored at the fairground site and sent home.

The health department said “reactions were consistent with common reactions in adults being vaccinated, with any vaccine, but due to the numbers of individuals affected, the site stopped the J&J vaccinations to evaluate.”

Tens of thousands of J&J doses “have been given statewide with no adverse reactions”, Georgia’s health department said. Use of J&J’s single-shot vaccine is not being paused at other sites around the state, which ranks eighth in the US by population.

“There is no reason to believe there is anything wrong with the vaccine itself, and other individuals who have received the vaccine should not be concerned,” Dr Kathleen Toomey, health commissioner, said.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is evaluating the incidents in Georgia alongside others in Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina, the department of health said. Toomey said state authorities were “looking into what happened and what may have caused the reactions, including the conditions at the fairgrounds such as heat and the ability to keep the site cool.”

Three sites in North Carolina were cleared to resume J&J vaccinations after the CDC said on Friday it found no evidence of safety concerns.

Georgia has fully vaccinated 14.5 per cent of its 10.6m residents, according to data as of Thursday morning from the CDC. That ranks it last in the US on that measure and compares to the average of all states of 20.8 per cent. The state has administered at least one vaccine dose to 28.1 per cent of all residents, which ranks third-last in the US.

New infections have been on the decline since reaching a peak in early January. Georgia has averaged almost 13 new cases a day over the past week, according to the CDC, down from a rate of more than 90 a day at the start of the year. The downward trend contributed to Governor Brian Kemp’s decision this week to proclaim “Georgia is open for business” and lift all pandemic-era restrictions from April 8.

Georgia has confirmed 1,022 cases of the B.1.1.7 coronavirus variant, according to the CDC. That is the sixth-highest caseload for the strain, which was first identified in the UK late last year, trailing Florida (its neighbour to the south), Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Utah.

Pfizer and BioNTech have become the first vaccine makers to request the use of their Covid vaccine on children, following a successful trial last week.

The companies on Friday said they had requested emergency use authorisation from the Food and Drug Administration to use their vaccine on children aged 12 to 15.

The move to vaccinate children follows results from a phase 3 trial of 2,260 teenagers aged 12 to 15 that last week elicited 100 per cent efficacy and a strong antibody response.

The companies said they plan to request authorisation from other regulators in the coming days.

New Spanish rules banning people under 60 from receiving the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus jab have scared thousands of people away from their vaccination appointments, one of the country’s regional governments has alleged.

The Madrid administration said that on Thursday, the day after the rule change, only 10,800 people in the region turned up for 29,000 appointments, and accused the national government of undermining faith in the vaccine programme.

Antonio Zapatero, the Madrid official responsible for regional Covid-19 policy, said that while only 600 appointments had been cancelled because the vaccine recipients were under 60 years old, more than 17,000 people either failed to arrive, did not confirm their attendance via SMS or requested a rescheduling. He added that as of Thursday night only 45 per cent of the 32,000 Madrileños with vaccine appointments on Friday had confirmed they would attend.

Mr Zapatero said that before the rule change – which he said lacked “technical criteria” – only 2 to 3 per cent of people had refused the AstraZeneca jab.

The Spanish rules were changed this week – as were guidelines in Italy – in response to findings by the European Medicines Agency detailing “very rare” cases of vaccine recipients who developed blood clots in the brain, abdomen or arteries. By contrast, the EMA itself did not alter its guidance for who should receive the jab.

Madrid, which is in the midst of a fierce political battle ahead of elections next month, was the only Spanish region to vote against the rule change, although two others abstained.

On Friday, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the head of Madrid’s regional government, engaged in a war of words with Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, after he suggested the region was under-reporting its true level of coronavirus infections. Sánchez also emphasised that Madrid has particularly high rates of Covid-19 hospitalisations and cases in intensive care. In turn, Díaz Ayuso accused the prime minister of “lying constantly” and having a “terrible obsession” with Madrid.

Italy’s daily number of deaths from Covid-19 has risen to the highest level this year as 718 people were recorded as having lost their lives to the virus in the last 24 hours.

The number of deaths, up from 487 on Thursday, comes more than three months into the country’s vaccination campaign, which has so far struggled to provide jabs to the elderly.

The single-day tally was also pushed higher as a result of a recalculation of fatalities over the last two weeks in Sicily, its regional government said. Sicily made up 258 of the 718 deaths recorded across Italy on Friday because of the region’s revaluation of earlier deaths.

Italy’s total number of deaths since the pandemic began now stands at 113,579, the highest absolute number in the EU.

While significantly more people aged over 80 have been given vaccinations since prime minister Mario Draghi two months ago called for Italians to “wait their turn”, on Thursday he again stressed the need to prioritise the elderly.

According to the most up to date data, just over 40 per cent of Italians aged above 80 are still waiting for at least one dose of a vaccine.

The Euro 2020 international football tournament, scheduled for this summer after a one-year delay, will take place in front of fans in at least eight host countries.

Uefa, European football’s governing body, which runs the competition, said eight of the host countries have confirmed that stadiums will be open to fans when the tournament starts on June 11.

Budapest is aiming to have a full stadium, while Baku and St Petersburg intend to be at least half full. Amsterdam, Bucharest, Copenhagen and Glasgow will allow capacities of between 25 and 33 per cent.

London, which will host the final, aims to start the group stages with a minimum capacity of 25 per cent and plans to increase attendance over the course of the tournament.

Munich, Rome, Bilbao and Dublin have yet to confirm their plans. The four cities have until April 19 to provide further details to Uefa.

Travelling fans must comply with local requirements and Uefa cautioned that they “will find it challenging due to ever-changing restrictions”, such as proof of a negative test for the virus.

Another challenge is that Uefa is offering refunds to fans who have already bought tickets for the event. Those who wish to return their tickets have until April 22, when the governing body will hold a ballot if too many people still hold tickets for the available seating.

The Spanish government has slashed its growth forecast for this year from 9.8 per cent to 6.5 per cent, citing the impact of the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic and adding that some economic activity resulting from the EU’s €750bn recovery fund will now be delayed until next year.

In revised figures issued on Friday, the ministry of economy said it expected a strong recovery from the second half of this year, leading to 2021 growth of 6.5 per cent and 2022 growth of 7 per cent.

Spain is one of the industrialised economies worst hit by the pandemic, contracting by 10.8 per cent in 2020.

Previously the government had forecast an increase in output this year of as much as 9.8 per cent, with the EU funds delivering 2.6 per cent of extra growth on top of underlying growth of 7.2 per cent.

Most outside bodies had forecast considerably lower rates of growth for 2021.

In its statement on Friday, the economy ministry said that Spain’s third coronavirus wave, which peaked in January, and the worst winter storm for more than half a century had slowed growth at the start of the year and delayed economic recovery by a quarter.

It added that some of the growth from the EU recovery fund that it had anticipated for this year would now occur in 2022. Spain expects to receive €140bn in grants and loans from the fund over the next six years. Many officials and economists say the country’s use of the resources – and how efficiently they are invested – could determine Spain’s economic destiny for a generation.

Vaccines are working well at protecting people from Covid-19, but many countries are nonetheless struggling to emerge from the pandemic as the spread of more transmissible variants hampers progress, according to an FT analysis of data from around the world.

The latest figures from the UK show that rates of cases, hospital admissions and deaths continue to fall across both the most- and least-vaccinated age-groups, though the decline is much steeper among the elderly, strongly suggesting that vaccines are accelerating the shrinking of the UK’s epidemic. More than 10,000 British lives are believed to have been saved by vaccines so far in 2021, according to data released on Thursday by Public Health England.

In France the situation is markedly different due to the recent arrival and rapid proliferation of the B.1.1.7 variant, combined with a slower vaccine rollout. While the trajectories of cases, hospitalisations and deaths all look rosier among the elderly than the young, the more transmissible variant has turned declining rates into increases, among vaccinated and unvaccinated groups alike.

The data show how during the earlier stages of a vaccination campaign, the jab works well at reducing levels of infection among the vaccinated relative to the unprotected, but it is powerless to change the direction of a growing outbreak. Once countries reach herd immunity, any such resurgences will be prevented, but until that point they remain vulnerable to new outbreaks.

AstraZeneca has slashed the number of Covid-19 doses it will deliver to EU nations this week by almost half, causing a hold-up that the company claimed would be temporary and was because of delayed testing of a batch of vaccines.

The company now expects to deliver 1.3m doses to the EU's 27 member states, plus Iceland and Norway, down from the 2.6m forecast it made in mid-March, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.

The cut is equivalent to a reduction of 49 per cent and is evenly distributed across countries, according to the documents.

AstraZeneca said it told the European Commission and member states last week that the batch required testing and would be delivered soon. It said it would still meet its target to deliver 70m doses in the second quarter.

“Weekly deliveries typically show small fluctuations depending on a number of operational factors, such as distribution or completion of quality and safety testing,” the company said.

The latest delay has caused frustration as it comes after the company had dramatically revised down its forecasts for EU deliveries in recent months, delivering about a quarter of maximum targeted supplies in the first quarter and more than halving projections for the second.

Any AstraZeneca vaccine shortfalls would be a fresh blow to the EU’s vaccination campaign — which has lagged behind those in the UK, US and Israel — although the jab is less important to the bloc’s rollout for the second quarter of the year than it was for the first.

Read more here

London’s restaurants and pubs that have been closed to the public since December are finalising preparations for a desperately needed return of visitors next week.

Hospitality venues across England will be allowed to serve customers outdoors from Monday under the latest loosening of coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

In the capital’s once-bustling west end, landlord Shaftesbury said it would have outdoor dining space available for 3,000 visitors across 165 restaurants and cafes.

Outdoor events and art installations would be put on in the months ahead to coax back visitors, the company said, while security would be in place to issue “friendly reminders regarding social distancing”.

London had been “disproportionately hit” by the pandemic, according to the Heart of London Business Alliance, which represents 500 businesses and 100 property owners. 

Footfall in the west end was 81 per cent below pre-pandemic levels, said Ros Morgan, chief executive. She called on government to produce a “bespoke recovery plan for London”. “When London succeeds so does the rest of the UK.”

Prices that US businesses receive for their products and services grew more than anticipated in March, potentially stoking market fears of a rise in inflation as the economy rebounds from the pandemic.

The producer price index advanced by a seasonally adjusted 1 per cent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. Economists had expected the figure to remain steady at its February reading of 0.5 per cent.

The increase was driven by energy prices, reflecting a sharp uptick in the cost of gasoline. Food prices also moved higher.

Core PPI, which excludes some services and volatile food and energy prices, gained 0.6 per cent versus a 0.2 per cent increase in February.

Nationwide senior economist Ben Ayers said that higher input costs would probably lead to an increase in prices paid by consumers, adding “more evidence that inflation should pop in coming months during the transition into the post-pandemic economy.”

“Ultimately, we expect this inflationary spike to be temporary as the supply of materials picks up later this year in response to the elimination of Covid workplace restrictions with ramped up hiring and total production.”

Minutes for the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting showed that most officials believed the risks to the inflation outlook were “broadly balanced,” in a sign that the central bank was shrugging off fears of an overheating economy after the passage of a $1.9tn spending bill.

Last month, the Fed raised its forecasts for both economic growth and inflation but said it did not expect to raise interest rates until at least 2024.

The yield on the US 10-year Treasury note rose as high as 1.69 per cent as investors waited for the PPI report. The benchmark yield was recently up 0.04 percentage points to 1.67 per cent.

Producer prices were up 4.2 per cent year on year on an unadjusted basis, the biggest rise since September 2011. However, the annualised figure was boosted by a weak comparison to March 2020, when coronavirus shutdowns began in the US.

US states will receive 86 per cent fewer doses of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine next week, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, following production problems at a manufacturing plant in Baltimore.

The number of the single-shot vaccine doses allocated face a sharp drop next week after 15m doses were ruined at a plant in Baltimore run by Emergent BioSolutions.

More than 4.9m J&J doses were allocated in the week beginning April 5 while 700,000 will be given out from April 12.

J&J has been grappling with manufacturing issues after workers at the Baltimore plant mixed ingredients for the single-shot vaccine with those for the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, which is made at the same factory.

On Saturday, J&J said it would “assume full responsibility” for the plant and increase the numbers of people responsible for manufacturing and quality at the facility.

J&J said it expects to deliver nearly 100m single-shot doses of its Covid-19 vaccine to the US government by the end of May.

Doctors in Turkey have accused the government of “abandoning” its duty to control coronavirus as the number of new daily cases and deaths hit an all-time high.

Turkey on Thursday recorded almost 56,000 new cases of Covid-19, the highest rate across Europe, according to the health ministry. Almost 260 people died.

Fahrettin Koca, health minister, blamed in part a new variant of coronavirus, although he also recognised that a recent lifting of social distancing restrictions had contributed to the surge.

New cases have soared almost six-fold since March 1, when the government reopened restaurants and schools.

Ali Ihsan Okten of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), the country’s largest group of doctors, claimed the government had “prioritised commercial and political concerns” over healthcare.

“The reason for this failure in the struggle against the pandemic … is a governance style that has abandoned its duty to society,” he told an online news conference on Friday.

Turkey is reimposing some restrictions to get case numbers under control. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president, said last week that in-person dining would be halted again when the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan begins on April 13.

Less than 10 per cent of Turkey’s population of 82m is fully vaccinated. Speaking to the Hurriyet newspaper, Koca acknowledged there had been delays in the shipments of vaccines from China’s Sinovac, with whom Turkey has contracted for 50m doses.

But he said he was confident that all adults over the age of 40 would be vaccinated by the end of June, thanks in part to doses from BioNTech/Pfizer and a possible purchase of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.

The European Medicines Agency is probing a potential causal link between four “serious cases of unusual blood clots” with a low platelet count and the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.

The EMA made the disclosure on Friday, noting that the vaccine is only being used in the US. “One case occurred in a clinical trial and three cases occurred during the vaccine rollout in the USA,” the regulator said. “One of them was fatal.”

It added it was “currently not clear whether there is a causal association” between the shot and the adverse event.

J&J said it was working with experts and regulators to assess the data. “Our close tracking of side effects has revealed a small number of very rare events following vaccination,” it said. “At present, no clear causal relationship has been established between these rare events and the Janssen Covid-19 vaccine.” 

New York-listed shares in the drug maker edged 0.4 per cent lower.

Earlier this week, the EMA said that blood clots in the brain, coupled with low platelet counts and bleeding, should be listed as a very rare side effect of the Oxford/AstraZeneca shot. The UK and other countries have restricted its use to older patients only.

The J&J and AstraZeneca vaccines use the same type of technology, using a viral vector to spur the immune system to fend off the virus that causes Covid-19.

The J&J shot, administered in one dose, was approved for use in Europe last month, but rollout has not begun yet.

The EMA also on Friday said it had begun probing whether capillary leak syndrome, in which fluid leaks from blood vessels causing a drop in blood pressure and tissue swelling, was causally linked to the AstraZeneca shot. The regulator said it had received reports of five such cases.

Coronavirus infections continue to be broadly flat across most of the UK, according to the weekly Office for National Statistics survey, though there were “early signs of an increase in the latest week, which balances out a small decrease seen the previous week.”

In England, an estimated 162,000 people had Covid-19 in the week ending April 3, equating to around 1 in 340 people -- a deterioration from 1 in 380 a week before.

Sarah Crofts, Senior Statistician for the Covid-19 Infection Survey, said: “We’re continuing to see a mixed picture across the UK, with infection rates decreasing in Wales and Scotland but appearing level in Northern Ireland.

“We have seen the infection rate [in England] fluctuate over the most recent weeks across different age groups and regions,” she added. “This week, for example, we are seeing an increase in those aged 50 to 69 years, decreases in the South West and North East, and numbers increasing in the South East region.”

In Wales just 1 in 800 people tested positive this week. The figure for Scotland was 1 in 410 and for Northern Ireland 1 in 300.

European and US stock markets were poised to end a record-setting week on a steady footing, supported by bond market tranquility, as investors banked on an economic recovery from Covid-19. 

The Europe-wide Stoxx 600 traded close to its record closing level from Thursday after recovering all its losses from the Covid-19 pandemic earlier in the week. The FTSE 100 dipped 0.2 per cent, having advanced 2 per cent over recent sessions to hit a one-year high.

The solid start to second-quarter stock trading this week came as the US Treasury market strengthened. Yields on the 10-year note ticked up on Friday to around 1.67 per cent but remained well below a high of 1.72 per cent on Monday.

The pull back in yields indicates a boost to prices for the crucially important bonds, which endured heavy bouts of selling last month. Volatility in the bond market spooked stock traders as investors questioned the US Federal Reserve’s ability to hold the line on monetary policy. 

“The fact that Treasury yields have stopped rising is quite important,” said Sunil Krishnan, head of multi-asset funds at Aviva Investors. “It does remove a headwind for equity markets.”

Read more here.

Germany is to legislate for an “emergency brake” that will mandate tough lockdowns in parts of the country with over 100 infections per 100,000 people, as the federal government claws powers from the regions to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

The “brake” will be incorporated into the Infection Protection Law, which has been the government’s main tool for fighting the virus since the pandemic broke out.

Ulrike Demmer, a spokeswoman for chancellor Angela Merkel, said the federal government had reached an agreement with the governments of Germany’s 16 regions to amend the Infection Protection Law. She said the federal cabinet would approve the amendment next Tuesday and send it to the Bundestag.

She said the amendment would set out what restrictions can be imposed in areas where the incidence rate exceeds 100 coronavirus infections per 100,000 people over seven days.

“The goal is to create national rules,” she said. At the moment, the 16 federal states enjoy broad discretion to enforce their own rules, such as shutting schools or imposing night-time curfews. The amendment would standardise the pandemic response across Germany.

Demmer was speaking days after a TV interview with Merkel in which she sharply criticised some of Germany’s regional leaders for failing to activate the emergency brake, which stipulates lockdown measures above an incidence rate of 100. She said she would be taking time to “think over” what the government’s response to this could be.

The mayor of Ukraine’s capital city is urging the country’s government to impose a national lockdown to curb a peak in coronavirus cases as vaccinations continue to stall.

“Ukraine today is in the top three European countries in terms of the number of patients per day and the number of deaths from COVID-19,” Vitaly Klitschko said.

“Only since the beginning of this month, since April 1, 3,556 people have died in the country. 392 patients have died in Kyiv. This in 9 days!”

He continued: “How many more people have to get sick, how many more to die for the government, for the central government to understand that immediate measures are needed at the state level? Otherwise, in the absence of mass vaccination, the country will face disaster. Therefore, I urge the government to immediately consider introducing a national lockdown. A real lockdown.”

Kyiv this week followed other cities in shutting down public transportation except for essential workers following the closure of schools, shopping centres and restaurants late last month. The restrictions were imposed as part of the government’s so-called “adaptive quarantine,” which allows regional governments to impose necessary restrictions. 

Deep nationwide lockdowns imposed last spring helped Ukraine largely avoid the pandemic’s first wave, but the country has now recorded nearly 2m confirmed cases and 36,381 deaths. The number of new daily cases is approaching 20,000 with total active cases at 392,189.

Klitschko’s comments came hours after Ukraine’s health minister Maksym Stepanov predicted there would be between 25,000 and 30,000 new daily cases “within a week or ten days”.

Health authorities across Europe have stressed that the rare blood clots linked to the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine are as common in men as women, as experts continue to puzzle over the mechanism causing the strange constellation of sometimes fatal symptoms. 

Early reports on the clots from Europe stressed that the vast majority of cases were observed in women — a phenomenon that seemed to make sense given that the specific kind of blood clot gaining attention is known to afflict women roughly twice as much as men. In late March, Germany announced that there had been 31 cases in total, 29 of which affected women.

But at a press conference held by the UK medicines regulator on Wednesday, Sir Munir Pirmohamed, chair of the UK’s Commission on Human Medicines, a government advisory body, said the incidence rate of rare blood clots showed “no difference” between men and women.

The European Medicines Agency also said there had been no indication that there was a gender more at risk.

The pronouncement from two of the most established international health agencies has turned early understanding of the condition on its head, and eliminated some of the most compelling hypotheses about the scientific mechanism causing the response.

Read more here.

Germany’s health minister has called for a strict lockdown to break the third wave of the pandemic, saying the country’s hospitals were in danger of reaching breaking point amid a large influx of patients with Covid-19.

“We need a lockdown to break the current wave and bring the incidence level well below 100 [per 100,000 people over 7 days],” Jens Spahn told reporters   

“That could build a bridge into a phase when we can open up again, supported by testing.”

He said a tougher lockdown might mean people would be required to work from home and stop all unnecessary travel. He also raised the possibility of night-time curfews and other moves to reduce social contact.

Germany recorded 25,464 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, a big increase on the day before, and 296 deaths. Officials said the real number could be higher as many people did not get tested over the Easter holiday. 

Lothar Wieler, head of the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s main public health agency, said the situation in the country’s hospitals was “very, very serious”, with ICUs “filling up rapidly”. 

There were now 4,500 people with Covid-19 being treated in German intensive care wards, he said, and 700 of them arrived in the last week alone. Some 85 per cent of them needed to be ventilated, he said.

Spahn said Germany had so far administered 17m doses of vaccine. Around 15 per cent of the population had received a first shot, and almost 6 per cent had been given two.

France will give the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccine as a second dose to people aged under 55 who have already received a first dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, as part of its response to concerns about rare blood clotting incidents.

The decision was announced on Friday after a recommendation from the Haute Autorité de Santé, a panel of medical experts who advise the government.

It will affect roughly 500,000 people under 55 who were given a first shot of AstraZeneca from early February to mid-March when they were eligible under the country’s strategy at the time of giving health care workers the vaccine. Other jabs were reserved for the elderly.

When the blood clot concerns emerged, France changed course to use AstraZeneca vaccine only for people aged above 55. Nothing will change for this group, said the HAS.

“Given that the protection of the Covid-19 vaccines begins to diminish after three months, these people need an additional dose,” said Élisabeth Bouvet, a vaccine expert and member of the HAS.

At a press conference, the HAS recognized that the dose-mixing approach was not yet common or supported by large-scale clinical evidence, and called for additional studies to be carried out.

In a statement, the HAS said that all the Covid-19 vaccines were aimed at the same spike protein “which supports this strategy”, as well as referring to early-stage, experimental trials in vaccines against HIV which use boosters that are different to the first shot.

Even without clinical data to back the mixed-dose approach, Bouvet said that they believed it carried low risks of side effects and was likely to offer people sufficient protection.

Health minister Olivier Veran told RTL radio on Friday that the approach was “totally logical” given European regulators’ analysis of the rare blood clotting side effect, and France’s adoption of an age restriction as a result.

Norway’s prime minister is to be fined for breaking the country’s coronavirus rules by organising a 60th birthday dinner for 13 family members, becoming the most high-profile politician worldwide to be sanctioned for such a breach.

Police said they would fine Erna Solberg NKr20,000 ($2,350) in an attempt to maintain public confidence in the laws used to fight the pandemic.

The news is highly embarrassing for the centre-right prime minister as she fights for re-election later this year. Her Conservative party has suffered in opinion polls since she apologised last month for the episode.

“The law is the same for everyone,” said Ole Saeverud, police chief in Norway’s south-east district, on Friday.

He added: “Solberg is the country’s foremost leader, and has on numerous occasions fronted government decisions to counter the pandemic.

“Therefore it is considered appropriate to give out a punishment in order to maintain public confidence in the rules on infection control.”

After the authorities in Italy’s Puglia region asked Antonio La Scala to conduct an audit of everyone who had been given a coronavirus vaccine, the findings left him in shock.

Of the 140,000 people in the region who had received a jab having been classed as priority medical workers, thousands appeared to have no links with the healthcare industry.

“We could immediately see the numbers didn’t add up . . . Puglia doesn’t have this many healthcare workers,” La Scala, head of the region’s medical inspection unit, said of his research carried out in mid-February.

“We cross referenced the data with social security information and found there were many people getting doses with no right to them: friends of friends, associates, parents,” said the 52-year-old dubbed the “007 of vaccines” by the local press for his investigative skills.

Puglia is perhaps the most vivid example of the dysfunctional vaccination rollout that has plagued the EU’s third-largest economy since Covid-19 jabs became available early in the year. As of the end of last week, 98 per cent of people in Puglia aged 70-79 were still waiting for a first dose, along with almost half of over 80s.

Read more here.

Shares in PageGroup rallied 8 per cent in early trading after the UK-listed recruiter said it was on track to deliver full-year operating profit of at least £90m thanks to a strong end to the first quarter.

Despite new lockdowns being imposed across several of its biggest markets, the FTSE 250 company said the strength of its performance in March had “increased confidence” in its outlook for the year.

The coronavirus crisis has unsettled the jobs market. While PageGroup’s gross profits of £184.2m for the first three months of the year ticked up 1 per cent from the same period in 2020, they were down 9.9 per compared with 2019 levels. Quarterly profits fell year-on-year both in the UK and US.

But the performance was stronger elsewhere. Steve Ingham, chief executive, said the group produced “record” numbers last month in Germany, Italy, Spain and South East Asia.

He said the company now expected full-year operating profit between £90m and £100m.

At this stage of the recovery, however, it was “not easy to determine whether the improved performance is the result of pent-up supply and demand, or the beginning of a sustainable trend”.

Page reduced the number of recruiters earning fees by 882 last year, down 12.6 per cent on 2019 levels.

People in the UK aged under 30 are to be offered an alternative to the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine after a link was found between rare blood clots in the brain and the AstraZeneca shot.

The UK’s medical regulator said people aged 18 to 29 should preferably be offered either the BioNTech/Pfizer or the Moderna jab as an alternative. But what does this mean for those who have already had one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine? Can you mix vaccines? Why have other countries introduced much tighter restrictions than the UK on the AstraZeneca vaccine, such as limiting it to over 60s?

Clive Cookson, the FT’s science editor, and Hannah Kuchler, our pharma correspondent, will answer your questions about vaccine rollouts across the world and emerging variants of the virus throughout the day today.

Post your queries on this page and our FT reporters will drop in regularly on Friday to answer them.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has pledged to make it as affordable as possible for the English public to travel overseas after he unveiled a “traffic light system” that will permit holidays to some locations subject to tests and other restrictions.

Under government plans set out on Friday, travellers would be allowed to take holidays to a small number of as-yet unidentified “green” listed countries from mid-May. They would have to pay on their return for a PCR test.

PCR tests help detect new coronavirus variants and are more accurate than quicker lateral flow equivalents, but according to consumer watchdog Which they cost an average of £120 per person.

“Costs are definitely a concern,” Shapps told Sky News. “We have to accept we’re still going through a global pandemic.”

“But I am undertaking today to drive down the costs of those tests.” Ministers plan to work with PCR test providers to reduce the costs.

The travel industry has warned that a system that requires such tests threatens to make overseas holidays unaffordable for many families.

“It’s a cautious move, but at least it provides that framework for people,” Shapps said of the new system. “In the green category, we’ll try to make it as affordable as possible to travel, but taking an abundance of caution as we go.”

Tui, Europe’s largest travel company, is to raise up to €400m via a convertible bond as it navigates the impact of the pandemic.

The Germany-based group said on Friday that it would aim initially to raise €350m from the bond, with the option for €50m more. The proceeds would be used “to further improve its liquidity position as the Covid-19 crisis continues and subsequently for the repayment of existing financing instruments”.

Tui has gone through a series of refinancing deals during the pandemic. The latest was a €1.8bn package announced in December, which included a €500m rights issue and backing from the German Economic Support Fund.

In a trading update last month, the company said that it had “sufficient liquidity” until the summer and that booking trends were encouraging. “In the German and UK markets, holidaymakers are expected to show considerable pent-up demand,” it added.

An Indian government committee is investigating whether the country’s two approved vaccines — including the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab — have led to cases of blood clotting in the country, according to local media.

The committee studying adverse effects after immunisation will release a report on its findings as soon as next week, according to Mint, a business newspaper. 

In addition to AstraZeneca’s Covishield vaccine, India has approved the use of a home-made jab developed by Bharat Biotech.

In light of concerns about rare cases of dangerous blood clots after vaccination, the UK has recommended that anyone under the age of 30 be given an alternative vaccine, while Spain and Italy have restricted its use to people over 60.

The Times of India newspaper reported that the committee was examining about 700 serious adverse events following vaccinations.

The AstraZeneca jab accounts for about 90 per cent of the 94m doses administered in India so far, with Bharat Biotech making up the remainder.

India is under pressure to accelerate its vaccination drive, which is currently restricted to those above 45, by opening it up to more age groups. 

Iran is set to impose a lockdown for at least 10 days as of Saturday following a new surge in coronavirus-related deaths.

Alireza Raisi, a spokesman for the national Covid-19 task force, said on Thursday evening that the country would be shut down based on categories which rate almost the whole country as “red” — the most serious level of Iran’s Covid-19 response tiers. 

Only businesses that provide basic commodities and medicine will be open, he said.

While the lockdown is scheduled for 10 days, it could be extended if necessary, Raisi added.

“We are aware that many businesses will be damaged but there is no other choice,” he said. “If we continue like this, we will face more problems and the next wave of the disease could happen.” 

He called on people to take warnings seriously as “police cannot be present in your houses”.

This is the second time Iran has imposed a lockdown. When daily death tolls went beyond 400 in November, a lockdown was imposed for two weeks.

Although many people defied the restrictions, daily fatalities fell below 100 from January. 

This, however, encouraged Iranians before and during the Persian new year holidays from March 20-April 2 to again defy warnings. 

Gatherings and travel resumed without restrictions, and daily confirmed cases reached new record highs. 

The government of Hassan Rouhani has failed to impose strict measures to combat the pandemic, partly to help businesses suffering from both US-imposed sanctions and the consequences of the outbreaks. 

Iran, with 63,884 deaths, has the highest fatality rate in the Middle East, which officials partly blame on the US sanctions.

Japan is moving to apply new measures against Covid-19 in the prefectures of Tokyo, Kyoto and Okinawa as cases of the virus continue to rise.

The “targeted anti-spread measures” are similar to the “state of emergency” used earlier this year, but they can be applied to smaller areas within a prefecture, and do not include a blanket request to stay at home. 

They constitute Level 3 in Japan’s four-tier virus response system, while the state of emergency is Level 4.

“The number of cases continues to rise nationwide,” said Yasutoshi Nishimura, the cabinet minister in charge of Japan’s virus response.

The variant first identified in the UK has become particularly prevalent in the city of Osaka, which began the new Level 3 measures on Monday.

“People moved around a lot in March and April, but one big background factor is the spread of virus variants, so we have a strong sense of crisis,” Nishimura said.

New cases nationwide have risen from lows of about 1,000 a day in March to 2,500 more recently.

With slow progress on Japan’s vaccination campaign, a resurgent Covid-19 epidemic would pose a renewed threat to the Tokyo Olympics, which are scheduled to take place in July.

The Indian government has rejected suggestions that the country faces a looming vaccine shortage, as its Covid-19 caseload surges and hospitals struggle to cope.

India detected a new all-time high of 131,878 new Sars-Cov-2 infections on Thursday, pushing the country’s total confirmed caseload to more than 13m since the start of the pandemic.

The nation also reported 800 Covid-19 deaths on Thursday, pushing the confirmed toll from the pandemic to 167,694.

Nearly 3.7m vaccines were also administered on Thursday, bringing the total number of vaccines doses administered to around 94m.

But India’s vaccine drive is showing signs of strain, with many hospitals and clinics in hard hit areas now running out of the inoculations, forcing some to shut down and leaving many would-be recipients disappointed.

Several states say they are running short of vaccines, especially in hard hit areas where demand for the inoculations has surged along with rising caseloads.

Harsh Vardhan, the country’s health minister, has denied the country faces any shortage.

He said that India still has about 24m doses in stock, and will be receiving another 19m doses soon.

The Philippines on Saturday will launch a nationwide fitness programme, amid concerns that coronavirus lockdowns are affecting people’s health and wellness.

The country's national sports agency said the campaign, “Zumbarangay Pilipinas”, underlined the importance of maintaining physical fitness when normal movements were limited.

President Rodrigo Duterte placed metropolitan Manila and four nearby provinces, a region of more than 25m people, under lockdown as daily infections breached the 10,000-mark. 

The national capital and the neighbouring provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal are under strict quarantine orders due to expire on Sunday.

“Once we get motivated to move our bodies, exercising can make a big difference; it changes our mood,” said William “Butch” Ramirez, Philippine Sports Commission chairman, in announcing the campaign on Thursday.

The campaign — the name of which combines “Zumba”, the Colombian fitness dance and “barangay”, the traditional Philippine village unit —also incorporates a contest.

Ramirez said participants can record their performances to the beat of “Igalaw Galaw Ating Katawan”, a workout song specially commissioned for the campaign.

Hong Kong has halted its order for the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine as concerns mount about its effectiveness against new variants. 

The announcement came as the European Medicines Agency said there was likely to be a link between rare blood clots in the brain and the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab. 

Health advisers in Hong Kong recommended to the city’s authorities that the vaccine not be delivered in 2021. 

Sophia Chan, secretary for food and health, said Hong Kong already has a sufficient supply of jabs, so the government decided that AstraZeneca did not have to deliver its supply “within this year”. 

She said the Hong Kong decision would “avoid wastage when there is a global shortage of vaccine supplies”.

The Chinese territory would instead consider snapping up new-generation vaccines that provide better protection against newly mutated coronaviruses, Chan added.

South Korea will reimpose a ban on karaoke bars, nightclubs and some other nightly entertainment facilities as the number of new coronavirus cases surge to three-month highs, raising concerns about a fourth wave of infections.

Chung Sye-kyun, prime minister, on Friday announced the stronger containment measures to be effective in Seoul and Busan, the country’s two biggest cities, for three weeks from Monday. 

The country has been grappling with cluster infections at churches, bars and gyms in the densely populated areas.

The current 10 pm curfews on cafes, restaurants and bars will be maintained while gatherings of more than four people will continue to be banned, he said.

“The fourth wave of virus infections, which we tried to avoid so desperately, seems to be coming closer and getting stronger,” Chung told a daily government meeting on the pandemic.

The tighter measures come as the country’s vaccination drive has hit a snag amid worries over instances of rare blood disorders in people who have had the Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs. Health officials on Wednesday decided to temporarily suspend use of the jabs for people under the age of 60.

Chung told health officials to thoroughly and swiftly review the latest findings by the European Medicines Agency on the safety of the vaccine.

He stressed that the government has secured enough vaccines to inoculate 12m people, nearly one-quarter of its 52m population, in the first half of this year. The country aims to reach herd immunity by November.

The government is expected to announce its decision on the weekend on resuming the use of AstraZeneca’s vaccine for people aged under 60.

Daily new cases hit 671 on Friday, near the highest level since January, increasing the total caseload to 108,269, with 1,764 deaths so far, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. 

Saudi Arabia said on Thursday it would fine pilgrims who pray at Mecca during Ramadan without a permit, in a bid to curb rising coronavirus infection rates.

The kingdom’s interior ministry said anyone caught praying without a permit would pay a penalty of SR10,000 ($2,666). Anyone caught attempting to enter a holy site faces a SR1,000 fine.

The rules would be implemented until the pandemic is over, the ministry said.

Many Saudis traditionally perform umrah, also known as the lesser pilgrimage, during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins on Tuesday.

The ministry said check points had been established on roads and other entrances to Mecca’s sacred sites.

Australia’s cabinet meets on Friday to discuss the country’s Covid-19 vaccine rollout, a day after an abrupt change of direction over the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.

The country’s decision to recommend the AstraZeneca shot only for people over 50 has upended the rollout, which was largely dependent on the UK-developed vaccine.

Scott Morrison, prime minister, said on Thursday that the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation had met to consider the medical evidence regarding “unforeseen but yet rare and serious side effects” from the AstraZeneca vaccine. 

“We expect that this will require some changes to the arrangements we have as part of the vaccination rollout,” Morrison said, amid reports that Australia would urgently seek supplies of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab. 

On Friday, Brendan Murphy, health department secretary, said Australian doctors have supplies only of the AstraZeneca shot. 

“The Pfizer [jab] is a very complex, cold chain vaccine that has to be given in special circumstances,” he told ABC radio. “I would strongly encourage those over 50 to take up the vaccine, the AstraZeneca, when offered.”

He said older Australians who refuse the AstraZeneca jab “wouldn’t be able to get access in the short term to a Pfizer vaccine because those vaccines have been prioritised for the under 50s”. 

Factory gate prices in China leapt by the most since 2018 as the country’s recovery from the pandemic continues to gather momentum.

The producer price index in China beat expectations to add 4.4 per cent in March year on year, official data showed on Friday.

The index returned to growth in January this year for the first time since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, with higher costs for raw materials helping to push the gauge higher amid a rush of industrial activity.

The scale of the rise in March suggests greater price pressures in China, where the focus has turned to the prospect of rate rises and the tightening of financial conditions. 

The consumer price index, which has over recent months dipped into negative territory, rose 0.4 per cent in March.

Julian Evans-Pritchard at Capital Economics noted that “higher producer prices and a tightening labour market should start to put greater upwards pressure on core inflation”.

He said that was unlikely to ruffle the People’s Bank of China.

“That shouldn’t alarm the PBoC but will provide reassurance that they are right to focus on controlling credit risks,” he added.

The stark contrast between the UK’s approach for the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and many other countries became clear on Thursday morning.

As UK health secretary Matt Hancock toured broadcasting studios to defend the decision only to restrict people under the age of 30 from having the jab, his counterparts in other countries from Spain and Italy to the Philippines were limiting its use to anyone over 60.

“I think people can take confidence in the fact that we have a world class regulator that is totally transparent with the data and then takes a cautious approach to making sure this vaccine rollout goes as safely as possible,” Hancock told BBC Radio.

Read more here

Almost 25,000 Russians who have returned home this year have tested positive for Covid-19, accounting for about 1 per cent of all arrivals.

Russia’s head of human wellbeing, Anna Popova, told Komsomolskaya Pravda radio that the infection rate had been rising since a gradual lifting of restrictions on international flights began in August 2020.

To date, more than 4.6m coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 101,845 fatalities nationwide. 

Popova said she expected the incidence of infection to rise in the Russian autumn, and urged people to be vaccinated as quickly as possible.

She said Russia’s Covid-19 vaccination programme would not meet its target figures until autumn, just ahead of the projected surge.

Australia’s Northern Territory is scrambling to harvest its A$70m (US$53m) melon crop after plans to import seasonal workers from East Timor fell through due to coronavirus concerns.

The territorial government said on Thursday it had allocated A$745,000 to ensure farmers have enough people to pick more than 75,000 tonnes of produce.

Territory melons, which ripen in the southern autumn, enable Australian consumers to buy the fruit all year.

The Northern Territory is seeking 200 workers from across the nation this month.

Melon farmers had been arranging for workers to come from East Timor, but the government said their travel and quarantine could not be arranged in time.

The harvest season begins on April 12.

The leading US disease control agency on Thursday declared racism a “public health threat”, underscoring the disparities among communities affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the agency would accelerate its work to “address racism as a fundamental driver of ... health inequities” in the US. 

She said the pandemic, which has resulted in the death of more than 500,000 Americans, was felt most severely among racial and ethnic minorities. 

“Importantly, these painful experiences and the impact of Covid-19 are felt, most severely, in communities of colour — communities that have experienced disproportionate case counts and deaths, and where the social impact of the pandemic has been most extreme,” Walensky said.

She said the disparities were not a result of Covid-19 but the pandemic had “illuminated inequities that have existed for generations and revealed for all of America a known, but often unaddressed, epidemic impacting public health: racism”.

Walensky unveiled a new website, Racism and Health, that will serve as a hub for the agency’s efforts.

Travellers from England could take overseas holidays from May 17 to a small number of countries but will have to pay about £100 on their return for a Covid-19 test. 

Transport secretary Grant Shapps will on Friday confirm plans in England for a “traffic light system” for foreign travel, but each option will involve polymerase chain reaction tests upon return to try to track new variants of the virus entering the country. 

Unlike the quicker lateral flow tests which detect a protein antigen on the virus’s surface, the more accurate and expensive PCR tests look for Covid-19’s genetic material.

Read more here

New York City on Thursday introduced new rules governing outbreaks of Covid-19 infections in schools, with shutdowns occurring only if there are four or more cases in different classrooms in a school within seven days.

One confirmed case would result in that classroom adopting remote learning for 10 days.  Two or three cases in a week would require an increase in testing, but not a closure.

“Weekly random testing will double to 40 per cent of the staff and students in the school,” said Meisha Ross Porter, the city’s schools chancellor.

She said the new rules were based on US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.

“We’ve seen the studies [and] consulted with medical experts,” Porter said. 

“Fewer closures mean consistency and stability for students, staff, families, and more days in classrooms for New York City’s children.”

San Francisco officials said on Thursday that they plan to restart live events next week, with strict capacity limits and health requirements.

The plans follow California’s release of state guidelines for indoor live performances.

“We know that much of what makes San Francisco special are the live performances and events where people can come together for music, sports and cultural performances and graduations,” said London Breed, the city’s mayor. 

“We’ve all been missing these events over the last year, and we are excited for this step and what lies ahead,” she added.  

San Francisco plans to allow up to the maximum capacity of 35 per cent for indoor ticketed and seated events and performances, as long as state social distancing guidelines are met.

Performances and other events must have an approved health and safety plan.

Participants must keep their masks on except when eating or drinking in their assigned seats, and show proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test. 

Venues operating at 15 per cent or lower capacity or less with no more than 200 people attending are exempt from the health and safety plans, or proof of jabs and negative tests.

Slovakia’s drug regulator claimed a batch of Russian-made Sputnik V vaccine was unlike  those reviewed by western medical experts. Slovakia’s State Institute for Drug Control said on Thursday that the shipment had different characteristics to those reviewed by medical journal The Lancet and Europe’s medicines regulator.

Scarcely a month ago, Chile’s centre-right government was basking in praise for its model rollout of Covid-19 vaccines, as it powered ahead of the rest of the Latin America — and most of the world. But since then, Chile’s impressive vaccine programme has failed to spare it from a recent surge in coronavirus cases.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s president, said he will take the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, dismissing suggestions it was risky due to the chance of blood clots. The 67-year-old president, who earlier this week waved away the offer of a vaccine, said the risks were “minimal compared with the benefits”.

Major British sports bodies — the English Premier League, Lawn Tennis Association, Rugby Football Union, and England and Wales Cricket Board — see vaccination certificates as a path to getting fans back into their stadiums. They hope their use can help them ditch social distancing measures as they look to increase ticket sales.

A Colorado doctor has been charged with with stealing nearly $300,000 in government funds from three Covid-19 relief programmes, the US justice department said on Thursday.

Francis Joseph, 56, of Highlands Ranch, allegedly transferred $118,000 in relief funding from a medical clinic’s account into his personal bank account, after which he spent the money on travel and home improvements. 

Prosecutors said the stolen funds came from two programmes designed to aid medical providers during the pandemic, the Accelerated and Advance Payment Program and the Provider Relief Fund.

The AAPP accelerates cash flow to Medicare providers during emergencies, while the PRF is a pandemic-specific fund launched in 2020. 

The department said the charges against Joseph are the first to be brought under the AAPP and only the second under the PRF.

The indictment also alleged that Joseph fraudulently applied for a $179,999 loan under the Paycheck Protection Program on behalf of his medical practice.

Joseph faces several charges, including theft, wire fraud and making a false statement.

UK companies have been sounded out by the government about the possibility of implementing up to six months of social distancing each year and the longer-term use of masks and see-through plastic screens as they plan for a return to the office. 

The government is carrying out a review into the measures to be imposed on office life once the economy reopens fully on June 21. 

Business department officials on Thursday discussed proposals on a call with professional services firms, while other sectors are also being consulted. 

Read more here

Florida governor Ron DeSantis said the state will sue the US government and the country’s top public health agency to allow cruise ships to resume sailing immediately. The cruise industry, one of Florida’s main economic engines, was shut down by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention more than a year ago.

Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has called on the country to prioritise vaccinating the elderly as many over-60s continue to remain without shots while younger workers have received them. As of last week 43 per cent of people aged over 80 years old in Italy and 88.9 per cent aged between 70 and 79 were still waiting for a first shot.

US Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell said he would like to see “a string” of months with strong jobs growth of about 1m for the economy to show the “progress” in the recovery from the pandemic. He cited the stronger economic outlook because of strong fiscal policy support and a rapid vaccination rollout.

New unemployment claims in the US rose for a second consecutive week, pressing pause on a recent slowdown in the pace of lay-offs as states lift coronavirus restrictions. Seasonally adjusted jobless applications unexpectedly rose from 728,000 in the previous week to 744,000 in the week before Easter. 

Online fashion retailer Asos said that the outlook for its full-year was boosted by a strong first-half performance, but it remained cautious about economic prospects for its core 20-something customers. Pre-tax profit in the six months to the end of February was £106m, up from £30.5m last year.

The UK’s Co-operative Group said it would repay about £15m of furlough scheme assistance that it received from the government, but has reiterated its refusal to return business rates relief. The UK’s sixth-biggest food retailer by market share said that the Covid-19 pandemic had imposed significant additional costs.

Johnson Matthey, the British specialist materials company, said full-year financial results would reach the top end of analysts’ expectations thanks to a strong recovery in China’s car market. The group, which makes catalytic converters, predicted underlying operating profit would come in at £405m to £502m in the year to March.

Vaccitech was primed and ready when the pandemic broke. The Oxford university spinout got a head start in the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine after years of work on another coronavirus. It now wants to capitalise on its pioneering technology with a flotation. The timing is less propitious for that milestone.

One in three Americans has received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, while one in four residents over the age of 18 has now been fully vaccinated.

More than 112m people have received at least one shot of Covid-19 vaccine, according to data on Thursday from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That is 33.7 per cent of the country's population, up from 33.1 per cent yesterday.

A further 66.2m people are now fully vaccinated, or 19.9 per cent of the US population, taking the total number of Covid-19 shots administered to almost 175m.

Late last month, President Joe Biden doubled his goal for coronavirus vaccinations within his first 100 days in office to 200m. 

On Tuesday, he urged every state to make adult residents eligible for a shot by April 19, bringing forward his previous target date of May 1.

Among Americans over the age of 18, 25.6 per cent have now been fully vaccinated, up from 24.9 per cent yesterday. 

For those aged 65 and older, more than three in four have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, while 58.4 per cent of this age group has been fully vaccinated.