Coronavirus: New York City to allow sitting at bars from next week — as it happened

Drinkers will be allowed to pull up a stool and sit at New York City bars from next week after Andrew Cuomo announced the long-standing pandemic-era restriction on seating at bars will be lifted.

The governor said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon that starting May 3, residents of the densely-populated city will be allowed to sit indoors at the bar. Earlier today, Cuomo said in a tweet that late-night curfews for outdoor and indoor dining areas would be progressively lifted from the middle of next month.

In addition to the announcement on bar seating, drinkers will no longer be required to buy food alongside their alcoholic beverages after legislators from New York’s upper and lower houses agreed a deal on Tuesday to strip Cuomo of the emergency powers he was granted during the toughest days of the pandemic last year.

The deal will allow executive orders related to important public health matters to remain in effect, but other temporary emergency powers will expire at the end of this month. The changes to Cuomo’s powers have followed mounting calls for the governor to resign in the wake of several scandals.

Cuomo has stepped up his efforts to reopen the state in recent weeks and on Monday said that gyms outside New York City, offices and casinos would from mid-May be able to operate at higher capacity than at present.

Amazon will give a pay rise of up-to-$3 an hour to more than 500,000 employees in its US logistics network, amid continued scrutiny of working conditions for its frontline employees.

Amazon said on Wednesday it had brought forward its annual pay review and would incrementally increase wages from between 50 cents to $3 per hour, an investment of $1bn, said Amazon executive Darcie Henry.

“This is on top of our already industry-leading starting wage of at least $15 an hour and the more than $2.5bn that we invested last year in additional bonuses and incentives for front-line teams,” Henry said in a statement.

The company said it was hiring “tens of thousands” of jobs in its vast logistics network. Amazon rapidly expanded during the pandemic, bringing its workforce to more than 800,000 in the US alone, making it the country’s second-largest employer, behind Walmart.

The pay rise did not apply to Amazon’s workers outside of the US, the company said.

Amazon employees in the country currently start on at least $15 per hour, more than double the national minimum wage. But the jobs, and the use of tightly monitored productivity quotas, have drawn criticism from campaigners and politicians, particularly as the dangers of coronavirus set in.

In March 2020, during the frantic early stages of Covid-19 lockdown, Amazon temporarily increased pay from $15 to $17, but dropped the increase several months later.

Ford will make 1.1m fewer vehicles this year because of the worldwide shortage of semiconductors, the carmaker said on Wednesday, significantly more disruption than previously hoped.

The company had earlier forecast it would make between 200,000 and 400,000 fewer vehicles. Under its new guidance, production will be down 50 per cent in the second quarter and 10 per cent in the second half.

The revised outlook took the shine off figures for the first three months of 2021, which showed Ford’s highest quarterly profits in a decade.

The semiconductor shortage has hamstrung carmakers across the globe, as chipmakers reserved product for consumer electronics customers, who pay more. Matters were compounded by severe weather in Texas and a fire at a Japanese plant owned by Renesas.

“We now expect the semiconductors shortage to get worse,” said John Lawler, Ford’s chief financial officer. “We do see the trough being in Q2.”

The carmaker said it would take a $2.5bn hit to the year’s earnings before interest and taxes as a result of the disruption — the upper limit of the range it gave in February.

Its shares dropped 3 per cent in after-hours trading.

Apple posted double-digit growth in the first quarter of 2021 in all of its businesses, led by iPhone sales that surged by two-thirds from a year ago.

The world’s largest company said revenue rose 54 per cent in its fiscal quarter to $89.6bn, far exceeding already elevated forecasts of $77bn. Net profits rose 110 per cent to $23.6bn.

Total iPhone sales increased 66 per cent, bringing in $47.9bn — or 54 per cent of all revenues — as consumers the world over upgraded their handsets to the first line-up of 5G-enabled iPhones.

Luca Maestri, Apple’s finance chief, told the Financial Times that every region grew at least 35 per cent, led by a 94 per cent gain in Asia-Pacific to $7.5bn. In the Americas, its biggest region, revenue grew 35 per cent to $34.3bn.

Revenue in China grew 87 per cent to $17.7bn, as different model iPhones were the top-two selling smartphones in the country.

Read more here

Facebook’s shares rose more than 5 per cent in after-hours trading after it said prices for digital ads were soaring amid a boom in demand, one day after Google said it was enjoying a similar dramatic benefit from the pandemic.

First-quarter revenues at the social media group increased 48 per cent to $26.1bn, beating analysts’ expectations of $23.7bn. 

David Wehner, chief financial officer, said the quarter’s revenue growth was driven in particular by a rise in ad prices of 30 per cent year-over-year — a sign of high demand — and a 12 per cent increase in “the number of ads delivered”.

He added: “We expect that advertising revenue growth will continue to be primarily driven by price during the rest of 2021.”

Facebook’s net income jumped 94 per cent to $9.4bn, or $3.30 a share, well above consensus estimates of $6.8bn, or $2.34 a share. 

Read more here.

Turkey reached a deal to acquire 50m doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine as it grapples with delayed shipments of other drugs and new variants of the coronavirus, the health minister said.

Turkey has detected its first cases of a strain of the virus first identified in India, the minister, Fahrettin Koca, said in a televised message. “Mutations have made the fight against the virus arduous,” he said.

Turkey recorded 40,444 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, the highest daily increase in the world after India. Deaths in the last 24 hours stood at 341, according to the health ministry.

The first batch of the two-dose Sputnik vaccine will arrive in May and the rest will come over the next six months. Turkey is in the final phase of issuing emergency authorisation for the adenovirus-based vaccine and will also produce it domestically, Koca said.

Turkey has fully vaccinated about 11 per cent of its population of 82m people. China’s Sinovac agreed to supply 50m doses, but it is unclear how many have reached Turkey. It has received 4.5m doses of BioNTech/Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine.

“Even though there are occasional slowdowns in the shipment of the Sinovac vaccine, with increasing capacity, the amount of doses we receive will increase,” said Koca, adding that more than 30m doses of the Pfizer vaccine will have reached Turkey by June.

Koca said that Ugur Sahin, chief executive of Germany’s BioNTech who is of Turkish descent, on Wednesday spoke with Turkey’s coronavirus task force, prompting them to extend the period between administering the two doses to six to eight weeks from the current 28-day interval. He did not say if there is currently a shortage of the drug.

Public health officials have found five cases of the new variant from India in Turkey’s largest city of Istanbul, Koca said. Most cases in Turkey are from a variant that emerged in the UK, and strains initially detected in South Africa and Brazil are also present, he said.

Scientists have not yet concluded whether the B.1.617 variant first identified in India is responsible for the surge in cases and deaths that country is experiencing.

The US has now delivered more than 300m doses of coronavirus vaccines since December, bringing inoculations to 55 per cent of all adults.

Vaccine deliveries have totaled almost 302m from the time the vaccine rollout began, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The US has administered 235m of those doses so far.

Nearly 143m people, or 43 per cent of the total population, have received at least one shot. That means 55 per cent of adults have received either one or two doses, while 38 per cent are fully vaccinated.

However, the rate of vaccinations slowed for a seventh consecutive day. The US has reported 2.67m new doses per day over the last week, compared with a peak of 3.38m on April 13.

The Federal Reserve upgraded its view of the US economic recovery, but kept interest rates close to zero and showed no signs of moving to remove support for the economy.

At the end of a two-day meeting, officials noted the improvement in the economy and offered a brighter picture than they had in March.

“Amid progress on vaccinations and strong policy support, indicators of economic activity and employment have strengthened. The sectors most adversely affected by the pandemic remain weak but have shown improvement,” the Federal Open Market Committee said.

The Fed continued to say that the path of the economy would “depend significantly on the course of the virus” and the public health crisis created “risks” to the economic outlook. However, in March, the US central bank had described the pandemic risks as “considerable” — an adjective it removed on Wednesday.

The Fed kept its ultra-easy monetary policy in place. It held the federal funds rate, its main interest rate, at its target range between 0 and 0.25 per cent and said it would continue to buy $120bn of debt per month. 

The Fed has set a high bar for starting to reduce the pace of its asset purchases, saying “substantial further progress” would have to be made toward its goals of full employment and 2 per cent inflation on average over time. The US labour market is still 8.4m jobs short of its pre-pandemic employment levels, and while inflation is expected to rise in the coming months, Fed officials do not expect it to be sustained.

Health secretary Matt Hancock reiterated the UK’s support for India as it battles its latest wave of Covid-19, but said that the country was not in a position to offer surplus vaccines.

Speaking at the Downing Street briefing, Hancock said the fight against coronavirus was “global” and that the situation within India was a “stark reminder” the pandemic is not yet over.

“In this battle against coronavirus we are all on the same side . . . when other nations face their hour of need, as we’ve faced our hour of need here at home, we will be there,” he said. “Everyone across this whole United Kingdom stands side by side with the people of India in these troubled times.”

While the UK does not have surplus vaccines to send abroad, Hancock said the UK would provide other medical and material supplies. Earlier on Wednesday, the UK government announced that three additional oxygen generation units will be sent from Northern Ireland to India.

The health secretary also noted that because of “British technology” India has been able to produce its own supplies of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.

The UK has purchased 60m extra doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine in preparation for a “booster” campaign for the most vulnerable in the autumn.

Interest in delivering booster shots later in the year has been exacerbated by rising numbers of concerning new variants in the UK, at least one of which has shown some signs of being able to evade immunity conferred by vaccines and prior infection.

“Our vaccination programme is bringing back our freedom, but the biggest risk to that progress is the risk posed by a new variant,” said Matt Hancock, health and social care secretary. “We’re working on our plans for booster shots, which are the best way to keep us safe and free while we get this disease under control across the whole world.”

News of the new Pfizer dose purchases, which takes the total procured to date to 100m, came after Dr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at Public Health England, told MPs on Wednesday of evidence suggesting that immunity to Covid-19 wanes at a slower rate after vaccination than had previously been thought.

This, Ramsay said, suggested that some annual booster shots could be delayed and others may not be needed at all.

Read more here

Uber users in the US are now able to book vaccine appointments directly through the rideshare giant’s app as part of a partnership with pharmacy chain Walgreens.

When booking an appointment, an Uber ride to and from the vaccination site can be scheduled at the same time.

In a video presentation on Tuesday, Uber said it had committed to providing 10m free rides for “underserved and communities of colour” to get to and from appointments.

“We know that by making it easier to get to an appointment, more people will get vaccinated,” said Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi.

Uber also used the announcement to plug several other products being rolled out as lockdown measures are eased. They included an expanded car rental programme and a new option for passengers to take a brief detour to pick up food on their way to their destination.

Uber is looking to maintain some of the huge growth seen for food orders during the pandemic, where its delivery income eclipsed its traditional rideshare service. The company’s path to quarterly profitability, which it has promised by year’s end, albeit on an adjusted basis, is somewhat reliant on both rideshare demand returning and customers sticking to newly formed food habits.

Early signs suggest it may be happening. March 2021 was the company’s largest ever for total gross bookings, according to a recent filing – a combination of rideshare rebounding to its “best month since March 2020” and delivery remaining up 150 per cent on the same period.

The BioNTech/Pfizer coronavirus vaccine has proved 94 per cent effective at preventing hospitalisation among over-65s after two doses, and 64 per cent effective after one dose, according to a new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A CDC report released on Wednesday showed the vaccine, one of two mRNA vaccines which have made up the bulk of the US rollout, had proven highly effective at preventing serious illness in older people, in line with what the company found during its US trials.

The study was based on 417 adults admitted to hospital with Covid across 14 states between January 1 and March 26.

The report’s authors said: “The findings suggest that Sars-Cov-2 vaccines can reduce the risk for Covid-19–associated hospitalisation and, as a consequence of preventing severe Covid-19, vaccination might have an impact on post-Covid conditions (e.g., “long Covid”) and deaths.”

Late-night curfews on New York bars and restaurants will be lifted next month, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced, another step in restoring some normalcy for many residents as the state brings its latest wave of coronavirus cases under control.

The governor said on Wednesday that a 12am curfew for outdoor dining areas at bars and restaurants will be lifted beginning May 17. On May 31, the 12am curfew on indoor areas at such establishments will be eased.

The announcement follows several steps Cuomo has taken in recent weeks to open up the state’s economy. On Monday, he said that gyms outside New York City, offices and casinos would from mid-May be able to operate at higher capacity than at present.

The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, has lowered the price it was planning to charge Indian states for its Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs after facing fierce criticism for hiking its prices.

India will from Saturday open up eligibility for vaccination to all adults between 18 and 45, but states and private entities -- not the central government -- will be responsible for procuring jabs at prices set by the manufacturers.

Serum originally planned to charge states Rs400 ($5.37), compared with Rs150 for the central government, but has cut the price to Rs300 in what chief executive Adar Poonawalla called a “philanthropic gesture”.

India is facing a brutal second coronavirus wave, reporting record highs of more than 300,000 cases a day.

Serum had been accused of profiteering by critics who said that states - many of whose finances have been buffeted by the pandemic - would struggle to pay.

Public health experts have called on the central government to procure the vaccines themselves and then offer them to citizens for free in order to accelerate the inoculation campaign.

India is already facing a shortage of jabs, however, with the pace of daily deliveries slowing this month.

The chief executive of Teva Pharmaceuticals said the major coronavirus vaccine makers declined his company’s offer to help manufacture the jab, despite Teva having production capacity ready to use.

“We’ve made it clear that we were willing to help but it has not resulted in any agreements,” Kåre Schultz told the Financial Times about conversations with the vaccine makers whose jabs have been authorised for use in the US and Europe.

He said the vaccine companies “have chosen either to go with some of the large established contract manufacturing organisations or with pharma companies with whom they have partnered before.”

Teva has production facilities that can fill and finish vaccine vials, as well as packaging, but Schultz said the major vaccine makers had “found capacity elsewhere that could fulfil the needs they had.” He said the company remained in discussions with other, smaller vaccine manufacturers but was “not too optimistic” that any deals would be agreed.

His comments came as India continues to battle a catastrophic wave of the virus that has overwhelmed the country’s health systems. Vaccine companies have objected to proposals to waive patents, saying that they are doing everything they can to increase production. 

Teva posted its first-quarter earnings on Wednesday, reporting adjusted earnings per share of 63 cents on revenues of $4bn. The company’s share price slipped 2.3 per cent.

Switzerland is to contribute $328m to a World Health Organization-backed scheme to distribute coronavirus vaccines to developing nations, following concerns of a $19bn shortfall in funding.

The country’s governing Federal Council said on Wednesday it was making the contribution to the Access to Covid-19 Accelerator Initiative to strengthen local healthcare systems.

The donation would have a particular focus on logistical efforts to ensure that medicines reach people in crisis zones and remote regions.

Funding would also be used for “promoting research, development and access to tests and medicines”, the Federal Council said.

The Access to Covid-19 Accelerator Initiative is a coalition of various health-related bodies, including the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, United Nations Children’s Fund and World Bank, as well as the WHO. It was launched last year by G20 countries and the European Commission.

The World Health Organization last week warned the initiative had a funding gap of $19bn. The US is currently the largest contributor to the programme, shouldering 36.8 per cent of the programme’s costs.

The US goods trade deficit swelled to a record high in March, signalling that trade could prove a modest drag on economic growth in the first quarter.

The advance trade deficit in goods grew 4 per cent month-on-month to $90.6bn in March, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday.

Exports rose by $11.4bn from the previous month to $142bn, while imports rose by $14.9bn to $232.6bn.

“The mini US economic boom pushed the goods trade deficit to break another new record in March,” said Oren Klachkin, economist at Oxford Macroeconomics.

As the US economy recovers faster than its trading partners, aided by unprecdented levels of fiscal stimulus, the trade deficit is expected to continue to widen this year.

“These dynamics will cause net trade to pose the most substantial drag on GDP growth since the 1990s,” Klachkin added.

If Joe Biden’s first 100 days had ended after 85 days, his Covid-19 vaccine rollout would have been an unqualified success.

Early in his presidency, Biden made a series of changes to the plan he inherited from the Trump administration, including setting up federally managed mass vaccination sites and deploying armed forces personnel to assist with managing them. That push helped his administration hit its target of administering 200m doses on April 21.

But a week before that milestone was passed, a problem began to emerge as the pace of vaccinations dropped and the stockpile of unused vaccinations increased. The sudden slowdown has exposed Biden’s next two big challenges: persuading reluctant Americans to take the jabs that are now available, and making sure the rest of the world does not go without.

“They got off to a fantastic start,” said Dr Tom Frieden, a former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “They made sure it was clear who was in charge of what, and they started communicating openly and clearly with Americans about what was happening. None of those things had been done before.”

Frieden added: “Now, however, you’ve got a slowdown in vaccinations. That’s because you’ve gone from getting the most eager people vaccinated, to reaching the ‘moveable middle’ [of people who are less sure about getting vaccinated], and in some cases, the immovable end.”

Read more here.

Boeing reported lower first-quarter revenue than a year ago, when it was in the midst of the 737 Max crisis, hurt by delays in 787 deliveries and a global pandemic that continues to depress airlines’ demand for planes.

Revenue fell 10 per cent year-on-year to $15.2bn in the first quarter. The company reported a net loss of $561m, that was narrower than the $641m net loss it posted for the same period a year ago.

“While the global pandemic continues to challenge the overall market environment, we view 2021 as a key inflection point for our industry as vaccine distribution accelerates, and we work together across government and industry to help enable a robust recovery,” chief executive David Calhoun said.

The flow of cash out the door has slowed. The company reported free cash outflow — operating cash minus capital expenditures — of $3.7bn for the quarter, compared to an outflow of $4.7bn a year ago.

The company began delivering the 787s against last month after quality problems caused months of delays, which hurt first-quarter results. Boeing is dropping the production rate to five per month as demand for widebodies remains low, since they are used most on long-haul international routes that the aviation industry expects will see the slowest recovery in air traffic.

Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest carmaker, is temporarily closing some of its factories to help conserve oxygen for medical use as the country faces devastating shortages of the gas to treat Covid-19 patients.

India on Wednesday reported a world-record of more than 360,000 coronavirus infections along with 3,200 deaths. Delhi and cities like Surat, Gujrat have been among the hardest hit by the surge.

Acute oxygen shortages have forced industries to redirect supplies of oxygen, which is used in the production of steel and other industrial goods, to supplement the treatment of Covid-19 patients.

The local subsidiary of Japan’s Suzuki, which sells around half of all cars in India, is shutting its factories in the northern state of Haryana, which borders the capital New Delhi, while Suzuki is closing its factory in the western state of Gujarat.

The plants were due to close in June for maintenance, but will now be shuttered from May 1 to May 9. Maruti Suzuki said in a statement that it believed “all available oxygen should be used to save lives”.

Malaysia will make AstraZeneca jabs voluntary, excluding them from the main, national vaccine drive.

“It will be open for members of the public who want to take the vaccine voluntarily after looking at all the facts on AstraZeneca,” Khairy Jamaluddin, Malaysia’s coordinating minister for Covid-19 immunisation, said on Wednesday.

He said this would help Malaysia address the public’s concern about the vaccine despite science proving its safety, and ultimately avoid disruptions to the national immunisation plan. “We feel the [AstraZeneca] vaccine is safe...[and] efficacious,” he said.

Signing up for the jab will be on a first come, first served basis for people aged 18 or over. Special centres will be opened to administer AstraZeneca vaccines.

Malaysia’s first 268,600 AstraZeneca doses will be allocated to Kuala Lumpur and Selangor where “case numbers...are still very high,” said Jamaluddin.

GlaxoSmithKline revenues fell 18 per cent in the first quarter, as the Covid-19 vaccination programme delayed sales of its Shingrix shot for shingles.

The UK drugmaker reported sales of £7.4bn for the quarter. Total earnings per share were 21.5p, 32 per cent lower than the same period last year, which had benefited from some stockpiling ahead of the pandemic lockdowns.

Emma Walmsley, GSK’s chief executive, said the results were in line with the company’s expectations and “reflect the anticipated impacts of Covid-19”.

“We continue to expect a significant improvement in performance over the remainder of the year and reconfirm our guidance for 2021 and 2022 outlook,” she said. GSK expects a decline of mid to high single digit percentage points in adjusted earnings per share for the full year.

She added that the company is strengthening its growth prospects with the launch of an HIV drug, the start of a late stage trial for a vaccine for the respiratory disease RSV, and a new long-acting treatment for severe asthma.

The earnings are the first since the Financial Times revealed that hedge fund Elliott Management has built a multi-million pound stake in the drugmaker, as it prepares to spin-off its consumer health division. GSK said it was on track to complete the demerger in 2022.

Immunity to Covid-19 wanes at a slower rate after vaccination than previously thought, according to the government’s head of immunisation.

Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at Public Health England, said that the “waning [of antibodies] may not be happening as fast we expected”, suggesting an annual booster shot would only be necessary if a variant of the virus was found to resist vaccine protection.  

She said that early modelling of the duration of immunity following vaccination were based on the influenza jab, which does not offer such high levels of protection and “which you do have to have every year”. 

The answer on whether booster shots would be needed for Covid-19 vaccines “is probably going to come down to variants and the protection against variants rather than the expectation that we’re going to see a rapid decline in protection,” she said. 

“We think and hope and assume that [the vaccines] will extend protection for several months or potentially years,” she said. “There’s no point boosting if you’re already protected. If a new variant comes in and our current vaccine isn’t working, that will be our biggest pressure to boost.”

Poland is to reopen outdoor pools, non-essential shops, museums, art galleries, restaurants and terraces over coming days as the central European country registers fewer coronavirus cases.

The relaxed rules, due to be in force from Saturday when more sports activities will be allowed to take place, come as recent figures give grounds for “cautious optimism”, the prime minister said as he laid out plans to reopen the economy.

“Data we receive about infections allow us to make decisions related to unfreezing the economy,” said Mateusz Morawiecki at a news briefing on Wednesday with the minister of health Adam Niedzielski . “These data give some grounds for such cautious optimism.”

Stores in shopping centres, DIY and furniture outlets will open from Tuesday, with social-distancing rules in place, Morawiecki said.

Hotels are to reopen on May 8, at 50 per cent occupancy, while terraces in restaurants and cafes can do so a week later.

Cinemas, theatres and indoor restaurants can open their doors on May 29, also the date when pupils of all ages can return to the classroom.

“Probably, when it comes to infections, the worst is behind us, but we should also remember that around 25,000 people are still in hospitals,” the prime minister said. “A return to normalcy depends essentially on the rate of vaccination,” he added.

Poland registered 8,895 coronavirus cases and 636 deaths linked to Covid-19 as well as underlying conditions, the latest figures out on Wednesday showed. More than 10m Poles have received at least one dose of the vaccine, or about 21 per cent of the population.

The third coronavirus wave hit the healthcare system particularly hard in March and April, bringing it close to its limits as Poland battled through its most difficult days of the pandemic. The more infectious B.1.1.7 strain of the virus first detected in the UK caused the surge, accounting for 90 per cent of new cases in the country.

Over half of Malta’s adult population have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, as the holiday destination relaxes rules ahead of the start of the summer season.

On Wednesday, the UK was added to Malta’s Amber List, meaning that non-vaccinated British travellers do not need to quarantine if they submit a negative Covid-19 test certificate before boarding flights to Malta.

“The people of Malta are looking forward to tourists returning,” said Tolene Van Der Merwe, of the Malta Tourism Authority.

“We’re thrilled to be able to share the news that over 50 per cent of the adult population in Malta have now been vaccinated,” she added.

Tourists from the UK who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 can travel to Malta without the need for a test from the beginning of June.

The coronavirus crisis has hit the tourism industry hard. Many southern European countries are hoping that the rollout of vaccination programmes will increase the number of visitors in the coming months.

One in five Maltese adults have received a second dose of a coronavirus jab.

Elsewhere, more than 90 per cent of people in Gibraltar over the age of 16 have received both coronavirus vaccinations, as have over 2,300 of the cross-border workers who regularly travel to the British overseas territory.

Ugur Sahin, chief executive and founder of BioNTech, said he was confident that the Covid-19 vaccine his company pioneered with Pfizer was effective against the Indian mutation that is currently overwhelming the country’s health system.

Sahin said BioNTech was currently testing the Indian variant of the virus, “but [it] has mutations that we have already studied and against which our vaccine is effective ... [so I’m] confident that it works [against the Indian variant] too,” he told reporters.

BioNTech had “thought a lot” about mutations when it developed its vaccine. “We come out of cancer medicine and [there] the tumour is constantly changing and mutating,” he said. “So we have experience with these escape mechanisms.” 

He said BioNTech had so far investigated more than 30 variants of coronavirus and found “that our vaccine works just as well against almost all of [them]”, particularly B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in the UK.

Describing BioNTech’s vaccine as a bulwark, he said it “will hold, I’m convinced of that”. 

“And if we have to reinforce the bulwark again, we’ll do it - I’m not worried about that,” he added.

The coronavirus surge in India is disrupting the supply of vaccines to neighbouring Bangladesh, as local distributor Beximco warned that millions of doses it expected to receive were being held up.

Beximco Pharmaceuticals, which has been contracted by Bangladesh’s government to store and distribute Covid-19 vaccines from the Serum Institute of India, said on Wednesday it did not expect to receive 23m doses on time.

As a result, it cautioned it would be unable to meet its target of distributing 30m shots throughout Bangladesh.

India has implemented temporary controls on vaccine exports as it tries to deal with the developing coronavirus crisis.

While Beximco has already received 7m doses from the Serum Institute, it does not anticipate that it will receive the additional monthly instalments as had been scheduled.

Beximco said it would collaborate with the Serum Institute to provide a revised supply schedule once the export controls are relaxed.

The company had expected to receive a fee for the storage and distribution of the vaccine. 

The UK should aim to have at least one globally competitive industry in every part of the country by 2030 and introduce a scorecard system to track the progress of the government’s levelling up agenda, a group of leading business figures has said.

A ‘Help to Train’ scheme - which would allow people over 25 to access up to £10,000 to spend on “upskilling” - and a push to decarbonise homes were just some of the other recovery-boosting policies suggested in a report published on Wednesday by the bosses of 10 of the UK’s largest companies.

The Covid Recovery Commission, comprised of executives from companies including Vodafone, Astra Zeneca and Shell, said the pandemic had exacerbated existing inequalities and had a bigger impact on the UK economy “than any event in the last 300 years”.

Chair of the commission John Allan said the proposed National Prosperity Plan would ensure that growth is “used to remedy . . . widening social inequality”.

The creation of a ‘National Prosperity Scorecard’ would measure the success of government’s levelling up plans against a set of social and economic indicators including employment and benefit dependency rates as well as health and educational outcomes, the report said.

Allan told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the UK had “gone too far in focusing on a services-based economy” and that investing in manufacturing should be the priority.

Full-year sales at fashion brand French Connection fell 40 per cent as store closures and reduced wholesale demand hammered the retail sector.

Revenues declined 40.4 per cent to £71.5m, while the group extended its underlying loss to £11.7m, from a loss of £2.9m a year earlier, it said in an update on Wednesday.

Wholesale revenues for the year ended January 31 declined by a third as customers were particularly hit during the UK’s first national lockdown that was imposed on March 23 last year. However, French Connection said UK online customers “performed strongly” in the second half.

Retail revenues halved following store closures during three national lockdowns while social restrictions reduced footfall. But online sales were up 7.1 per cent as consumers stuck at home bought homeware and casual clothing.

“Our key focus for the year has been to navigate our way through the difficult challenges we have faced as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Stephen Marks, chairman and chief executive.

“Overall though I feel that we are definitely moving in the right direction once again,” he added.

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group in February sold its 25 per cent stake in the fashion brand, jumping aboard a share price rally sparked by rumours of a potential takeover. The company was worth almost £500m at its peak in 2004 before it fell out of favour with younger shoppers.

Grosvenor Group, the Duke of Westminster’s property company, swung to a sharp loss last year as the value of its global portfolio of shops, offices and homes tumbled.

The private company posted a pre-tax loss of £311m in 2020, having booked profits of £156.5m in 2019. Commercial property valuations around the world were battered by coronavirus and rent from tenants in the retail sector dried up.

Grosvenor said on Wednesday that the value of its property holdings slipped by £400m to £6.7bn. The sale of some assets in the UK contributed to the decline.

Mark Preston, the group’s chief executive, described the results as “historically poor.”

The biggest hit to valuations came in the struggling retail sector in the UK, US and Europe, where shops have been closed for lengthy periods because of the pandemic.

Preston said the impact was “less severe than we had been anticipating”, however, supported by “the diversity of our portfolio”.

Geographically, the pandemic’s impact on profits was felt most sharply in Grosvenor’s Britain and Ireland business, which includes large pockets of Mayfair and Belgravia in central London. The division sank to a £184m pre-tax loss from a profit in 2019 of £93m.

Dixons Carphone said that online sales of electrical goods more than doubled in the year to April, offsetting the extended closure of most of its stores in the UK and Ireland and allowing it to repay tens of millions of pounds of government Covid support.

Online sales of electricals jumped to £4.5bn, boosted by growth “in all markets,” with the company expecting full-year pre-tax profits to be in line with analysts’ expectations of £151m.

Dixons said it had reimbursed all government support for the £73m of furlough it paid to staff during the past year.

Dixons Travel, which operates in airports, is set to close, however. The company said it did not expect passenger numbers to recover sufficiently to compensate for the UK government’s removal of tax-free shopping at the beginning of the year.

Its shares were down 4 per cent in early morning trading.

Reckitt Benckiser’s net revenues rose more than expected in the first quarter as households and businesses bought yet more branded disinfectants to try to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

However, sales remedies such as Strepsils and Mucinex helped push revenues down 13 per cent in Reckitt’s health division. Colds and flu are estimated to be 90 per cent lower than normal as measures to curb Covid-19 prevented the spread of other illnesses.

The loosening of restrictions in some countries meanwhile helped other divisions: Reckitt’s sexual wellbeing division, which includes Durex condoms, showed strong growth as socialising resumed in China, south-east Asia and parts of the US and Europe.

Overall, like-for-like net revenue growth, calculated on an organic basis, was 4.1 per cent, the consumer products group said — higher than the 2.4 per cent analysts had predicted, but below the 13.3 per cent recorded a year earlier as the pandemic first spread around the world.

Sales of hygiene products surged 28.5 per cent, led by the group’s Lysol disinfectant, while consumers spending time at home bought more Air Wick fresheners and Finish dishwasher detergent.

Total net revenue came in at £3.5bn, down 1.1 per cent as a result of foreign exchange effects with the decline of the US dollar and some emerging market currencies.

Lloyds Banking Group’s profits surged in the first quarter this year as a brighter economic outlook led the bank to reverse some of the provisions it had made for potential loan losses after the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis.

The group became the second large UK bank to write back some of last year’s losses this week, following a similar move by rival HSBC on Tuesday.

Many banks took huge forward-looking provisions at the height of the first wave of the pandemic, but actual defaults have remained low thanks to government support measures such as the furlough scheme, which minimised job losses, and rescue loan programmes, which prevented many businesses from going under.

Lloyds, the UK’s largest retail lender, reported a pre-tax profit of £1.9bn for the three months to March, up from less than £100m in the same period last year.

The improvement was almost entirely because of the drop in bad debt provisions. Lloyds reported a net impairment credit of £323m, compared with a £1.4bn charge in the first quarter of 2020.

Supermarket group J Sainsbury said it expects exceptional costs associated with Covid-19 to begin falling away and remains comfortable with analysts’ forecasts for this year.

However, the UK’s second-largest food retailer booked another raft of charges relating to its restructuring programme as it looks to cut costs and reinvest the savings in new products and lower prices.

Underlying profit before tax for the year to March 6 fell 39 per cent to £356m, ahead of a £338m average of forecasts compiled by the company. The figure includes the impact of repaying £410m of business rates relief and £485m of costs incurred in coping with the pandemic.

But another £617m of exceptional charges took the company to a full-year statutory loss of £261m. These include £423m related to the closure of over 400 standalone Argos stores, which is much higher than the figure at the half-year stage.

Grocery sales rose 7.8 per cent over the year, reflecting the transfer of spending from pubs and restaurants to eating at home. In the final quarter, sales were up over 8 per cent, with much of the UK in lockdown.

Persimmon’s property sales have risen above pre-pandemic levels on the back of a surge in the UK housing market.

The London-listed housebuilder said in a trading update on Wednesday it had agreed to sell £3bn worth of homes to customers. The tally is £600m higher than the same time last year and £300m more than in April 2019, before the pandemic hit.

Like other builders, Persimmon has benefited from a hot market. Demand for new homes spiked after restrictions on property sales were lifted last May. Since then, sales have soared and prices have edged up to record levels, helped by the government’s decision to temporarily slash property taxes.

The average sales price of Persimmon homes in the period also rose. The average price in its order book stands at £252,000, compared with £244,000 a year ago.

“Demand for newly built homes remains healthy and the group’s sales rates are encouraging,” said Dean Finch, chief executive.

WPP, the world’s biggest advertising group by revenues, sprung back to growth with a first-quarter recovery that exceeded market expectations and pointed to a post-pandemic pick-up in ad spending.

Organic revenues rose 3.1 per cent in the first quarter, beating analysts’ forecasts for a 1.5 per cent decline, with a positive performance in 15 of its top 20 markets. 

Mark Read, chief executive, described it as a “strong start to the year and a return to growth in all business lines”.

The results followed similarly upbeat quarterly earnings from rival advertising holding groups Publicis and Omnicom.

While noting the “encouraging trends” in 2021, the London-based agency group highlighted continued uncertainty across many of its pandemic-hit markets.

WPP reiterated its guidance for the rest of the year, for which it expects organic growth in “mid single digits”.  

DoorDash is cutting fees for restaurants. Its motives are not entirely altruistic. The San Francisco-based food delivery app said restaurants could opt for three separate delivery plans providing different levels of support. 

Commissions will vary from 15 per cent, 25 per cent or 30 per cent per order. Previously, many smaller restaurants paid up to 30 per cent of every order. The move may seem counterintuitive. 

The pandemic has been a boon for the food delivery industry. DoorDash, led by Tony Xu, saw lockdown fuelled revenue more than triple to $2.9bn last year. Customers were happy to pay a premium to avoid going out. Restaurants, forced to adopt a takeaway-only model, had no choice but to absorb hefty delivery fees.

Read more here

Japanese carmaker Toyota notched record global sales in March as the company shrugged off a pandemic-related chip shortage and production troubles linked to bad weather.

Toyota’s worldwide sales climbed by 44 per cent to 982,912 last month, as it noted that sales and production had risen since September.

Unlike many of its peers, the carmaker was unaffected by a shortage of semiconductors when chip manufacturers prioritised demand from consumer electronics.

Toyota’s global sales rose 19.1 percent year-on-year in the three months to the end of March, exceeding expectations of a 10 per cent increase.

Worldwide sales fell 4 per cent for the 12 months to March 31.

Production, which was hit in 2020 by global shutdowns to stem the spread of coronavirus, rose 13.8 per cent in the March quarter.

Nearly 12m Indonesians have received a Covid-19 vaccination, health officials said on Wednesday.

A single-day record 136,455 people received their first vaccine dose on Tuesday, while more than 7m people have been fully vaccinated.

The Covid-19 Task Force is targeting to inoculate 40m Indonesian citizens as part of efforts to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus.

Indonesia received 3.8m two-jab doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine through the COVAX facility this week, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, health minister, said.

Another 3.8m doses are due in May, he added.

EU exports to China have grown at a double-digit pace since the pandemic struck a year ago, a rare bright spot in Europe’s otherwise bleak economic landscape.

But China’s actions in places such as Xinjiang and Hong Kong have made it clear to European companies that trade with China can be a double-edged sword, prompting some to reassess their links to the world’s second-largest economy and call on their governments to take a harder line with Beijing on human rights and unfair competition. 

Since the pandemic first struck, China has become the EU’s largest trading partner for goods, the source of almost a quarter of wares imported into the bloc last year, while 10 per cent of the EU’s exported goods went the other way. 

Read more here

A high court in Catalonia on Tuesday ordered the separatist-minded Spanish region to vaccinate national police at the same rate as local officers.

Local media reported that more than 80 per cent of the Catalan regional police and more than 70 per cent of the region’s municipal police had received Covid-19 jabs.

However, less than 10 per cent of national police and only 6 per cent of the Civil Guard — a national paramilitary force — stationed in Catalonia had been vaccinated.

In an order published on its website, Catalonia’s Superior Court of Justice said the region’s health department would be required to correct the imbalance within 10 days.

St Stephen’s Hospital in New Delhi was on the brink last week as it was inundated by victims of India’s unfolding coronavirus crisis.

With its beds filled with patients in acute respiratory distress, the hospital’s oxygen supplies ran perilously low. At one point, its giant oxygen tank had just four to six hours of piped oxygen left for 300 seriously ill patients. 

The crisis at St Stephen’s reflects how India’s brutal second wave has overwhelmed heath infrastructure and pushed its complex medical oxygen supply chain to breaking point. 

Read more here

Hong Kong should relax quarantine rules for vaccinated arrivals to boost languishing vaccination rates in the city, an epidemiologist said on Wednesday.

Ben Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong, told local radio that the city should carefully examine relaxing quarantine requirements for fully-vaccinated arrivals as they pose a lower risk.

“Having a relaxation of the on-arrival quarantine I think would already make a big difference,” he said. “That would encourage a lot of people to get vaccinated, that would bring the vaccine coverage up and then Hong Kong would be safer as a result.”

Arrivals to Hong Kong must undergo 21-day hotel quarantines after the city tightened existing self-isolation rules in December 2020.  

The Chinese territory is struggling to encourage residents to take up Covid-19 vaccines and bookings remain low despite opening up the shots to anyone over the age of 16 last week.

Figures released on Tuesday showed that 454,500 people in Hong Kong had now received two doses of either the Sinovac or BioNTech vaccines, or more than 6 per cent of the population.

The government on Tuesday outlined “vaccine bubble” plans for restaurants, bars and other venues in attempts to boost vaccination rates.

New rules will allow restaurants to sit more patrons at each table if diners and staff have been vaccinated. 

Bars and karaoke venues will also be allowed to reopen to customers who have received at least one shot of Covid-19 vaccine.

A single dose of a vaccine against Covid-19 can cut the risk of passing the disease on to household members by up to half, according to the most comprehensive real-world study into post-immunisation transmission risk.

The discovery that people who develop the infection after immunisation are far less likely to infect the people they live with will boost hopes that the spread of the disease can be slowed significantly, including among younger people who have yet to receive the jab.

A total of 33,843,580 Britons have now received at least one dose of vaccine and one in four adults are now fully vaccinated, according to the latest data.

Read more here

India detected a record 362,757 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, and a high of 3,285 deaths, as the country reeled under the force of a ferocious second wave that has overwhelmed its healthcare system.

The latest deaths pushed India’s official number of fatalities from the pandemic to more than 201,000 people, though experts believe the true toll is significantly higher.

In recent weeks, many stricken Indians have struggled to secure Covid-19 tests from overstretched medical laboratories, some of which have also scaled back testing. 

Ailing patients who have died without confirmed tests results are not being counted as Covid-19 deaths in official records.

The true number of infections is also thought to be far higher, with some epidemiologists estimating the likely number of new infections at around 1m a day.

However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party has sought to quash debates about the magnitude of India’s true casualty numbers, amid growing anger over the government’s handling of the pandemic.

“Those who died will never come back,” senior BJP leader Manohar Lal Khattar, chief minister of the state of Haryana, said on Tuesday. “There is no point debating if the number of deaths is actually more or less.”

Meanwhile, Australia has become the latest country to ban flights from India amid concern that arriving passengers could carry in the virus to a country that has successfully controlled the pandemic.

A coronavirus variant first discovered in India has been detected in at least 17 countries, according to the World Health Organization, as it reported a weekly record for global cases.

Scientists are monitoring the B.1.6.1.7 variant, which was identified in India in December, and its sub-lineages, as the country experiences a massive upswing in cases.

However, there is little concrete evidence that the variant’s virulence and transmissibility alone are responsible for the outbreaks, scientists said as other factors are also at play.

India has recorded six consecutive days of more than 300,000 new cases

“Preliminary modelling by WHO based on sequences submitted to [the] GISAID [global database] suggest that B.1.617 has a higher growth rate than other circulating variants in India, suggesting potential increased transmissibility, with other co-circulating variants also demonstrating increased transmissibility.,” the WHO said in its weekly update.

The agency cautioned that other drivers of the spread might include insufficient adherence to social-distancing measures and mass cultural and religious gatherings. 

The bulk of cases of the variant were found in India, the UK, US and Singapore.

Countries have moved to block flights from India in efforts to prevent the spread of the variant. 

Global coronavirus cases climbed for the ninth consecutive week to the highest seven-day tally of the pandemic, the report said, with 5.7m new infections.

Infections fell 8 per cent in the Americas and cases in Europe fell 12 per cent.

Officials in New York state announced they would open all government-run Covid-19 vaccination sites to walk-ins from Thursday.

All residents aged 16 and over would be able to receive first doses under the new rules.

“Beginning Thursday, April 29, all state-operated mass vaccination sites will accept walk-in appointments,” said Andrew Cuomo, governor. “All you have to do is show up.”

Cuomo said the change was prompted by declining demand for vaccine appointments.

“We were doing 175,000 vaccines every 24 hours, that number is down to about 115,000 vaccines every 24 hours,” he said on Tuesday.

Nearly 46 per cent of New York state residents have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, compared with a 42.5 per cent national average.

Cuomo said the state would adopt new guidance outlined on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which permits outdoor activities without face masks.

But he warned that risks remain high. “I don’t want New Yorkers to get the wrong idea,” he said. “Covid-19 is still dangerous.”

The state recorded 2,704 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday and 26 more deaths.

Japan’s government has begun internal discussions to legalise gambling on football and baseball in a move that would create a combined sports betting market estimated at more than $65bn a year.

The secret discussions, which were described to the Financial Times by two people with direct knowledge of the situation, means that betting on Nippon Professional League baseball could be deregulated as soon as 2024.

People familiar with the talks said that resistance to the idea had been significantly lowered by Covid-19 and the economic damage it had caused to professional sport.

Read more here

Asia’s recovery from the pandemic will diverge with countries that have controlled the virus set for robust economic growth against ongoing weakness for nations that have struggled to contain infections, according to the Asian Development Bank. 

Assuming that any new outbreaks of Covid-19 are brought under control and continued progress on vaccine rollouts, the ADB expects 7.3 per cent growth in the developing Asia region, which is made up of 46 countries and territories.

That growth will be bolstered by strong recoveries in China and India, the multilateral lender said.

“Growth is gaining momentum across developing Asia, but renewed COVID-19 outbreaks show the pandemic is still a threat,” said Yasuyuki Sawada, chief economist for the ADB.

The bank forecasts that China’s economy will “surge” by 8.1 per cent in 2021, from 2.3 per cent year-on-year growth in 2020, as domestic consumption picks up. It predicts 5.5 per cent growth for 2022, returning to pre-pandemic trends.

“The recovery will be driven by improvement in the job market, restored consumer confidence, and the release of pent-up household demand,” said Yolanda Fernandez Lommen, ADB country director for China. 

India’s economy is forecast to rebound by 11 per cent following an 8 per cent contraction in 2020, the ADB said, noting that this was under threat from a “severe” second wave of infections in the country.

The south Asian country’s health system is faltering and supplies of oxygen are running out after it recorded more than 300,000 new cases each day for the past six days.

The ADB highlighted that vaccinations against Covid-19 are “significantly skewed toward advanced economies”, estimating that countries in developing Asia had administered 5.2 doses per 100 people against 45 per 100 in the US.

Small economies that are reliant on tourism will continue to be the most vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic after international travel in the region collapsed in 2020 and have not yet recovered, the bank said.

And it warned that school closures resulting in an average loss of 29 per cent of the academic year will “substantially reduce future productivity and earnings”.

San Francisco officials will allow schools to host socially distanced, outdoor commencements for students graduating from high school this year.

Ceremonies for 4,000 public school graduates will be staggered in June. Schools with large graduating classes will be hosted at the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department’s Kezar Stadium. 

A two-hour gap between ceremonies will be set to allow disinfection, breakdown, and set up. All students will be seated about 2 metres apart, while guests will be in “family pods” of no more than four people sitting 2 metres from each other in the audience.

“While this year has been anything but a normal senior year for our high school students, we’re glad we can help bring some semblance of normalcy to this year’s graduation ceremonies,” said London Breed, city mayor.

The Premier League is seeking UK government approval to scrap its upcoming domestic media rights auction, and instead roll over its existing £5bn broadcasting deal with Sky, BT and Amazon.

English football’s top division is pushing for the move after clubs involved in the failed European Super League had sought to “stall” the decision as their focus switched towards the money-spinning breakaway tournament.

The league still needs approval to scrap the rights auction from ministers, who have the power to block the move on competition grounds. But the government is considering the proposal due to exceptional circumstances caused by the pandemic.

Read more here

Hong Kong’s government on Tuesday signalled that travel companies could resume local tours in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

Groups of no more than 30 people, including staff, would be permitted, Edward Yau, commerce secretary, said.

“The tourism industry is the hardest-hit sector under the epidemic,” Yau said.

The announcement followed a conditional relaxation in the food and beverage business, under which bars and clubs would resume and restaurants could open later, if staff and patrons had been vaccinated.

Canada’s government said it would provide $8m in assistance to India, to help the south Asian country fight a devastating new wave of coronavirus.

The contribution would fund the procurement of essential supplies and medicines, including desperately needed oxygen cylinders, its international development office said.

The C$10m payment would be made to the Canadian Red Cross, which would support its Indian counterpart.

“This will support everything from ambulance services to buying more personal protective equipment locally,” Justin Trudeau, prime minister, said on Tuesday.

Starbucks raised its full-year financial forecasts for the second time in three months, sending an upbeat signal on the pace of its recovery as consumers return to the company’s coffee shops with vaccinations on the rise.

The Seattle-based coffee shop chain said on Tuesday same-store sales in the quarter ending in March rose 15 per cent year on year, coming off a 5 per cent decline during the holiday period.

Net revenues rose 11 per cent to $6.7bn in the fiscal second quarter, missing Wall Street’s estimate of $6.8bn. However, Starbucks earned 62 cents per share on an adjusted basis, or nine cents more than analysts expected. Net earnings doubled to $659m from $328m.

Its international businesses posted a 35 per cent increase in comparable sales, driven by a 91 per cent surge in China, where thousands of Starbucks locations were temporarily closed one year earlier due to coronavirus.

Kevin Johnson, chief executive, said Starbucks’ fiscal second-quarter results “demonstrated impressive momentum in the business”. US comparable sales, which were up 9 per cent, reflected a full sales recovery in the company’s home market, he added.

Starbucks now expects adjusted earnings of between $2.90 and $3 a share in its full fiscal year. That marked an improvement over its previous guidance for $2.70 to $2.90 a share.

It also projected $28.5bn to $29.3bn in revenue, up from $28bn to $29bn.

The rosier outlook underwhelmed investors, who had already anticipated a rebound in Starbucks’ business this year and were looking for slightly stronger growth in the three months to the end of March.

Shares fell 2.3 per cent in after-hours trading on Tuesday, threatening to pare a year-to-date gain of 8.8 per cent.

The Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine provides enough antibodies to combat the strain of the Covid-19 virus spreading through India, state media reported on Tuesday.

Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya Center, the vaccine’s developer, told Tass that the jab “generates antibodies 20, 30, 80 times as much as necessary to neutralise the biggest amount of the virus in an infected organism”. 

He said Sputnik V would be “effective against the Indian strain”.

India’s health ministry reported in late March that a new coronavirus variant had been detected in the country. 

The ministry said that it was especially worrying that the new strain had two mutations previously observed in other virus variants. 

The US Department of Homeland Security has delayed the introduction of its enhanced driver licence and identity document programme due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Originally planned to start in October, the REAL ID rollout will kick off in May 2023, the department announced on Tuesday. 

“The pandemic has significantly impacted states’ ability to issue REAL ID-compliant driver’s licences and identification cards,” the department said in a statement.

Many state driver licensing agencies are operating at limited capacity. 

When introduced, the programme requires every adult air traveller to have a DHS-compliant driver’s licence or identification card, state-issued enhanced driver’s licence, or another acceptable form of identification at airport security checkpoints for domestic air travel.  

New cases of coronavirus in Europe last week declined for the first time in two months, though the continent still accounts for about one third of global infections and deaths, the World Health Organization said. More than 1.4m new infections have been reported across Europe in the past seven days, down from 1.6m the week before.

People in England aged 42 and 43 will be invited to get their Covid-19 vaccines from Tuesday, as the NHS continues its rollout of jabs. UK health secretary Matt Hancock, aged 42, said in a tweet that he was “really excited to get my text”. The NHS on Monday invited half a million 44-year-olds to get inoculated. 

Mexico, which has vaccinated some 9.5 per cent of its population, is preparing to ramp up its vaccine roll-out by extending the programme to over-50s from May. So far, 16.7m vaccine doses have been administered with 10.7m people having received their full course of treatment, said Hugo López-Gatell, health undersecretary.

Ireland has broadened the age group of people who can receive the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and will resume limited use of Johnson & Johnson’s shots, the government said on Tuesday, bolstering Ireland’s stuttering vaccine rollout. Ireland halted J&J’s vaccine in mid-April due to concerns about blood clots. 

Hasbro recorded a stronger profit than expected in the first quarter, boosted by demand for Play-Doh and Nerf toys as children spent more time at home because of the pandemic. First-quarter net revenues rose 1 per cent overall to $1.11bn. Hasbro swung to a net profit of $116m from a loss of $69.7m a year ago.

The Russian sovereign wealth fund backing the country’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine has hit out at a decision by Brazil’s health regulator not to allow imports of the jab. “Anvisa’s delays in approving Sputnik V are, unfortunately, of a political nature,” the Russian Direct Investment Fund wrote on Twitter.

General Electric’s revenues fell more than expected and it reported a loss in the first quarter in a “still difficult environment for aviation”. The 129-year-old industrial giant’s revenues fell 12 per cent from a year ago to $17.1bn. Its aircraft engine and component business has been hit hard by the pandemic.

US drugmaker Merck will expand the production and availability of its oral Covid-19 treatment in India as the country battles a catastrophic surge of the virus. Merck said on Tuesday that it had agreed non-exclusive voluntary licensing agreements with five Indian manufacturers for its molnupiravir coronavirus drug.