Coronavirus: Alabama joins US states lifting mask mandates — as it happened

Connecticut unveiled a reopening plan that will allow restaurants to operate at full capacity and loosen other coronavirus restrictions later this month.

Ned Lamont, the Democratic governor of Connecticut, announced the decision after the north-east state registered a sustained decline in cases and hospitalisations from a winter surge, saying officials have a better understanding now of the measures that help keep the number of infections low.

But he left open the possibility that rules could be tightened again to curb the spread of the virus.

“Was it unanimous? No,” Lamont said of the decision to roll back restrictions. “[Some said], ‘Why not wait, why not wait, there are variants we don’t know exactly, we could wait.’ But I think there was general consensus that we know what works, we know we have capacity at our hospitals, we know we can turn and change if we have to.”

Several states have eased or removed restrictions on businesses and social activity in the last few weeks following a slowdown in new Covid-19 infections and hospital admissions. Meanwhile, more Americans have been vaccinated against coronavirus, with 54m people getting at least one dose as of Thursday, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Biden administration has urged governors to move slowly on reopening, citing concerns over new variants of coronavirus.

Connecticut’s updated rules allow restaurants, which are currently limited to 50 per cent of their occupancy, to operate with no capacity limits starting on March 19. Social distancing, mask-wearing and an 11pm dining curfew will remain in effect.

Gyms, retail stores, offices and houses of worship are among the other businesses and gathering places that will move to 100 per cent capacity.

In addition, Connecticut will remove penalties from an out-of-state travel advisory and loosen curbs on private gatherings, weddings and sports.

Alabama will not force people to wear face coverings in public beginning the weekend after the Easter holiday, joining other states that have laid out plans this week to end mask mandates.

Governor Kay Ivey said on Thursday she would extend a mask-wearing rule to April 9, after which time the order will be allowed to expire.

The move follows similar actions by fellow Republican governors in Texas and Mississippi to end mask mandates in their states and allow businesses to operate at full capacity, encouraged by the vaccine rollout and declines in coronavirus cases and hospitalisations. The decisions drew criticism from some lawmakers who said the rollback in coronavirus rules went too far.

When asked about mask mandates ending in Texas and Mississippi, Joe Biden accused the governors of “Neanderthal thinking”. Mississippi governor Tate Reeves swiped back on Twitter, saying “I guess I just think we should trust Americans, not insult them”.

Jim Justice, the Republican governor of West Virginia, said that while the state would eventually end its mask mandate, it currently had no plans to do so. “I don't know really what the big rush to get rid of the mask is because these masks have saved a lot, a lot of lives,” he said in a CNN interview.

Ivey plans to continue wearing a mask herself when she is around other people, but the issue will be “a matter of personal responsibility and not a government mandate”, she said during a press conference. Texas and Mississippi also maintained recommendations to wear masks when social distancing was not possible.

“Alabamians are smart. They have good common sense. They know what works. But after (April) 9th, we’re not having a mask mandate,” Ivey said.

Alabama also loosened some restrictions on businesses and social activity, beginning on Saturday. Restaurants and bars will no longer be required to limit party size at each table, while summer camps can operate with social distancing and other health measures.

Government bond prices sustained a further blow on Thursday, prompting benchmark stocks to wipe out close to all gains for the year, after comments from Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell failed to reassure investors.

With prices falling, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note climbed to 1.53 per cent, up 0.05 percentage points from the previous day and continuing a sharp rise that has spread to debt issued by other nations.

In stocks, the benchmark S&P 500 index extended recent losses, briefly wiping out its gains for the year with a fall of as much as 1.7 per cent. The index later clawed back some of its losses, and closed down 1.3 per cent. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite finished 2.1 per cent lower, turning negative for the year.

Investors had been waiting to see if the Fed would react to the broad sell-off in government bonds in recent weeks with a stronger message or hints of fresh intervention to calm the market.

At an event hosted by The Wall Street Journal, Powell said he would be “concerned” by consistent tightening of financial conditions and that the central bank would be “patient” in the face of a temporary rise in inflation.

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French prime minister Jean Castex and health minister Olivier Véran have pleaded for the country’s more than 2m healthcare workers to get vaccinated against Covid-19, expressing concern that only about a third of them have been inoculated since the rollout began in January.

Officials say more than 40 per cent of carers in old people’s homes have been vaccinated – half the level of coverage for the 700,000 people living there, many of them vulnerable patients with dementia in their 80s.

“Clearly this is not enough,” Véran told a news conference on Thursday evening.  “I think the rates of acceptance will get better from here. I plan to write to every organisation for doctors, nurses and carers and ask them to be vaccinated.”

Asked whether Covid-19 vaccines might be made compulsory for healthcare workers, Véran said he thought persuasion would be enough, “and if it is not, then we can envision consulting with ethics bodies to consider making the vaccine obligatory”.

Marie-Laure Alby, a general practitioner, said she was “really shocked” to hear how few health workers had been vaccinated.

Many French people have been vaccine “sceptics” since before the pandemic, but acceptance has increased in recent weeks and the government has been heavily criticised for the slow pace of vaccination compared with the UK, the US and even with other EU members equally constrained by limited supplies of doses.

Few US professional athletes who contracted Covid-19 over the past year and returned to play have developed inflammatory heart disease, and none experienced an adverse cardiac event, according to a new peer-reviewed study published on Thursday incorporating subjects across nearly all of the major American professional sports leagues.

While results of the study are applicable to a very niche portion of the global population – professional athletes – the results, published in JAMA Cardiology, are among the first medical analyses available for existing protocols on testing, screening, and safety measures related to sport and the effects of Covid-19.

The study evaluated 789 athletes who tested positive for the virus across the vast majority of the major US professional sports, including the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Women’s National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer.  All were subject to follow-up cardiac screening after their diagnosis, of which just five – less than 1 per cent – exhibited inflammatory heart disease, and none experienced an acute cardiac event.

“As with other lessons professional sports have learned about Covid-19, the results of this study are being shared broadly to continue to contribute to the growing body of knowledge about the virus,” said the leagues in a joint statement.

Authors of the study included medical professionals who were employed by or consulted to several of the leagues. They cautioned that further longitudinal analysis is necessary, and that additional studies on youth, collegiate, and masters-level athletes are necessary.

Previous studies by medical professionals in recent months have found a high incidence of heart damage among Covid-19 patients from the general population.

Italy has blocked a shipment of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine that was destined for Australia, in the first such intervention since the EU introduced new rules governing the shipment of vaccines outside the bloc. 

Rome decided to prevent the export of 250,000 doses of the vaccine, officials said, as it moves to keep doses inside the union. 

Italy notified Brussels of its proposed decision at the end of last week under the EU’s vaccine export transparency regime. The commission had the power to object to the Italian decision and did not, officials said.

The move threatens to heighten global tensions over vaccine procurement after EU allies objected to the introduction of its export regime. Under the controversial system announced by the European Commission at the end of January, EU-based vaccine manufacturers must seek authorisation from their national government where their Covid-19 vaccine is produced before exporting it out of the EU.

The scheme was part of Brussels’ response to an admission by AstraZeneca that it would miss targets for vaccine delivery to the EU, stoking EU suspicions that production had been shipped elsewhere.

Mario Draghi, the new Italian prime minister, questioned why the EU was not imposing stricter vaccine export controls at a summit of EU leaders last month.

AstraZeneca declined to comment, as did the commission.

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Germany has decided to approve the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab for people aged 65 and over, in a move that could help speed up the country’s sluggish vaccination campaign.

Germany’s standing commission on vaccinations, known as Stiko, had previously recommended the vaccine only be used on those aged 18 to 64, arguing that there was a lack of evidence from clinical trials showing its effectiveness in older people.

It had made the decision despite the fact that the European Medicines Agency approved its use in all adults.

However, on Thursday Jens Spahn, health minister, said in an emailed statement that the use of the AstraZeneca jab would now be widened. “This is good news for any elderly people who are waiting for a vaccination,” Spahn said. “They can get inoculated faster.”

New claims for US unemployment benefits rose to 745,000 last week, the latest sign the pandemic is still weighing on the labour market even as some coronavirus restrictions are eased.

Figures from the US labour department on Thursday showed that jobless claims filed for regular state programmes increased 9,000 in the week ending February 27, up from a revised 736,000 the previous week.

The claims total was nevertheless lower than the 750,000 economists had forecast.

Severe winter weather has complicated recent unemployment claims. The latest increase came after jobless claims in the previous week fell to the lowest level in three months. Disruption from the weather in Texas and other states may have affected new filings.

In the most recent week, Texas and Ohio were among the states that reported the biggest increases in applications.

The uneven nature of the labour market recovery has provided an impetus for President Joe Biden’s $1.9tn fiscal stimulus package. Ahead of a Senate vote on the legislation, Biden and Democratic leaders have reached a compromise that would limit eligibility for $1,400 stimulus cheques.

More than 18m Americans are still claiming jobless benefits nearly a year after the coronavirus outbreak led to widespread restrictions and an economic contraction.

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

• The number of people infected globally by coronavirus climbed to 93,160, while the death toll continued to rise. Italy had the second most reported deaths outside China at 79, followed by Iran at 77 and South Korea at 28

• Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said that the US company would take measures to remove false claims about coronavirus, as part of a package of measures to help counter the outbreak

• Woolworths, Australia’s largest supermarket chain, limited the number of toilet rolls customers could purchase after fears of infection prompted panic buying

• The UK was on the “borderline” between the containment and delay stages of coronavirus, England’s chief medical officer said. Another 34 patients were diagnosed with coronavirus in the UK, taking the number of confirmed cases to 85

• Investors were hoping that an emergency 50 basis point cut by the US Federal Reserve would spur more widespread coordinated action by global central banks

• Scientists funded by the US defence department were racing to extract Covid antibodies from the blood of a recovered patient, in an attempt to develop short-term treatments to protect frontline healthcare workers and military personnel

• The Italian government ordered the closure of all schools and universities as Rome stepped up its effort to contain the largest outbreak in Europe

• US lawmakers reached a deal to unlock close to $8bn in emergency spending for the government’s response to the outbreak

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

A global sell-off in government bonds paused on Thursday as investors awaited remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell that could signal how the central bank will react to ructions in the sovereign debt markets.

Following a fresh bout of selling in US Treasuries on Wednesday, which spread to debt issued by other nations from Canada to Italy, the yield on the 10-year US government bond was broadly flat in early trading on Thursday at 1.47 per cent.

Germany’s 10-year bond yield fell 0.02 percentage points, as people bought the debt, to minus 0.3 per cent, while Italy’s slipped 0.01 percentage points to 0.74 per cent.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which acts as a benchmark for borrowing costs and asset prices worldwide, has risen rapidly from about 0.9 per cent at the start of the year.

Investors have offloaded the debt as President Joe Biden pushes his $1.9tn coronavirus relief package through the US legislature, raising expectations that the heavy stimulus spending will create strong economic growth and feed inflation.

The Fed continues to buy at least $120bn of financial assets each month to add liquidity to financial markets, as part of its emergency response to the pandemic that has helped drive global stock markets to a series of record highs.

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Nearly half of those over 80 years old in England who have received a double dose of the coronavirus vaccine have broken lockdown rules and the proportion is little different among those who have had a single jab.

Among those inoculated with the two-shot dose in England, 48 per cent have met somebody indoors other than a household or support bubble member or personal carer, official figures detailing the week ending February 20 have shown.

More than 40 per cent of those who received one jab less than three weeks ago have done so, the Office for National Statistics said on Thursday, which “appears to contradict lockdown regulations”.

The ONS study shows that 99 per cent of over 80s have received at least one dose while 15 per cent have received two or more.

Almost half, or 49 per cent, of over 80s perceived Covid-19 to be a “major or significant risk to them personally without vaccination”, the ONS said. This fell to 5 per cent once they had received both doses, however.

Under national lockdown guidelines, issued in England on January 5, it is against the law to meet socially with family or friends unless they are part of the household or support bubble.

The UK on December 8 became the first country in the world to administer the vaccine to protect against Covid-19.

Nineteen out of 20 of over 80s will be “very or somewhat likely” to encourage others to be inoculated, the ONS survey found.

A six week decline in coronavirus infections across Europe has come to an end as more infectious variants push case numbers back up again, the World Health Organization has warned.

New cases last week rose 9 per cent across the continent to surpass 1m, the WHO said at a press briefing. There were particular hotspots in central and eastern Europe.

Strains blamed for a surge in cases in the UK, South Africa and Brazil had been found in 43, 26 and 15 out of 53 countries in the region, respectively.

“Over a year into the pandemic, our health systems should not be in this situation,” said Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe.

He called for a renewed focus on testing and quarantine regimes as well as accelerated vaccine roll outs, and said any relaxation of lockdown rules should be “evidence-driven”.

“We need to get back to the basics,” Kluge said. While vaccinations were saving lives, he said, they would take time to be fully rolled out.

Retail sales in the eurozone suffered their biggest fall for nine months at the start of this year, as consumers cut back their spending in response to restrictions aimed at containing the spread of coronavirus.

A sharp drop in sales of non-food products led to a 5.9 per cent decline in retail trade in the eurozone in January, compared to the previous month, according to data published on Thursday by Eurostat.

This was the biggest monthly fall since last April, when the first wave of lockdowns was at its peak, and exceeded the 1.1 per cent decline expected by economists polled by Reuters.

While consumer spending rebounded in the third quarter of last year when restrictions were lifted, the recent drop means retail sales in January were down 6.4 per cent compared to January 2020.

Measures to counter the pandemic weighed on consumer activity, after non-essential stores were closed in some countries such as Germany and nighttime curfews were imposed in others such as France and Spain. A reversal of Germany’s temporary cut in value added tax and delays to the start of seasonal sales also contributed to the decline.

While sales of non-food products, excluding automotive fuel, fell 12 per cent in January, there was a 7.1 per cent increase in mail order and internet sales and a 1.1 per cent rise in sales of food, drinks and tobacco.

Hungary plans to close all shops besides supermarkets and pharmacies and close primary schools for an initial period of two weeks, premier Viktor Orban’s chief of staff announced.

Gergely Gulyas said the government would continue income support to all affected sectors from March 8 until March 22. For months, Hungary has been subject to a country-wide curfew from 8pm until 5am, but most stores have remained open.

“If we don’t close down now, then the reopening of the economy will be delayed,” he said.

Hungary, like elsewhere in central Europe, is struggling with a dramatic rise in Covid-19 cases as it attempts to vaccinate its 9.8m citizens.

On Thursday, Hungary registered 6,278 new infections, and 151 deaths in the preceding 24 hours, a three-month high. The rise in infections is primarily due to the virus variant first detected in the UK, according to the country’s top medical officer.

Last week Hungary became the first EU country to start administering China’s Sinopharm vaccine, in addition to Russia’s Sputnik V and jabs developed by BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford/AstraZeneca.

By Thursday, more than 785,000 of Hungary’s 9.8m residents had received at least one dose of a Covid-19 inoculation, government statistics showed.

The European drugs watchdog has begun a rolling review of Sputnik V, Russia’s coronavirus jab, triggering a process that could culminate in the rollout of the double-shot vaccine across the bloc.

The European Medicines Agency said on Thursday it would begin assessing data from the vaccine as details become available, significantly shortening review times.

Rolling reviews have been used for the vaccines approved in Europe, where the campaign to inoculate has been slower compared with the US and the UK.

A formal marketing authorisation application has not yet been submitted, the EMA said.

In the EU, Slovakia and Hungary have approved the vaccine for use. European public health laws allow individual member states to fast-track approval when there is high unmet medical need, for example during a pandemic.

Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, said the vaccine can make “an important contribution to saving millions of lives in Europe”. Once the EMA approves the jab, doses for 50m Europeans will be available from June, he said.

The move marks a significant shift in European policy as global health bodies move to expand their vaccine portfolios beyond shots made by Western manufacturers. Demand for vaccines significantly outpaces global supply.

Official expectations for the UK’s new car market in 2021 were downgraded again on Thursday, after February sales fell to the lowest level since 1959 because dealerships were forced to close in the lockdown.

New UK car sales fell by more than a third last month to 51,312, as dealerships were shut by lockdown measures, according to figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders.

While electric cars rose by 40 per cent to 3,516 - around 7 per cent of the market - diesel sales dropped by 61 per cent to just 13 per cent of the market.

The industry body cut its sales outlook for the year to 1.83m from a prediction of 1.89m made last month, in the expectation that the crucial month of March will be hit by the lockdown.

Sales last year were 1.6m following months of dealer and factory closures due to the pandemic, down from 2.3m during 2019.

February is typically a quieter month ahead of the registration plate change in March, which traditionally drives sales.

SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said the drop “is deeply disappointing but expected”.

He added: “More concerning, however, is that these closures have stifled dealers’ preparations for March with the expectation that this will now be a third successive dismal ‘new plate month’.

“Although we have a pathway out of restrictions with rapid vaccine rollout, and proven experience in operating click and collect, it is essential that showrooms reopen as soon as possible so the industry can start to build back better, and recover the £23bn loss from the past year.”

Rentokil Initial managed to grow revenues and operating profit through the crisis last year as higher demand for hygiene and disinfection services offset a reduced need for pest control in restaurants and offices.

The FTSE 100 company recorded operating profit of £384m in 2020, up 4.3 per cent from a year earlier, driven by a 37 per cent surge in sales at its hygiene division.

While authorities deemed Rentokil’s pest control services as essential, allowing them to operate through the pandemic, ratcatching and cockroach quashing demands fluctuated.

Pest control sales were much slower than those in the company’s hygiene division, ticking up 1 per cent.

More requests came from food retailers, pharmaceutical companies, transport providers and residential customers, compensating for the fall among offices, restaurants and caterers.

Shares fell 1.2 per cent in early London trading, after pre-tax profit including impairment charges and finance costs dropped a third to £230m over the year.

Investors have cooled on Rentokil in recent weeks, sending its stock down almost 11 per cent since the middle of February on concerns that the vaccine rollout will reduce demand for hygiene services.

However, Andy Ransom, chief executive, predicted it would remain buoyant after the pandemic. “The medium-term prospects for our hygiene business have never looked more promising,” he said.

Profits at car insurer Admiral jumped by a fifth last year as the coronavirus pandemic kept drivers at home and reduced the number of accidents on the road.

Admiral was one of the few UK insurers to hand rebates to all customers to reflect the drop in the number of miles driven. But despite handing out £110m of refunds, the company said on Thursday that its pre-tax profit rose 20 per cent to £608m last year.

The handouts may have helped Admiral to win new business.

“Our existing customers chose to stay with us more than ever before,” said Milena Mondini de Focatiis, who became chief executive at the start of this year, “and we increased the share of those switching from other insurers to Admiral, resulting in over 650,000 new customers in 2020.”

The company announced a final dividend of 86p per share, up from 77p in 2019.

UK-based gambling groups have targeted growth in online betting and new markets in order to offset sharp losses in revenue from high street betting shops, many of which remain closed under government lockdowns.

Entain, owner of the Ladbrokes and Coral brands, said on Thursday that its gambling websites had had “significant uplifts as a result of retail closure” and that it expected the shift to online to cover permanent damage to demand in bricks and mortar stores.

Revenues across its retail estate fell 40 per cent to £857m in 2020 with a sharp drop from an underlying operating profit of £172.3m in 2019 to a £19m loss last year.

Its online operations, by contrast, saw an increase of 28 per cent in revenues to £2.7bn, while underlying operating profit rose by almost two thirds to £679m, as punters turned to online betting to ease lockdown boredom.

William Hill, which operates 1,414 shops in the UK after closing 119 during the first national lockdown last year, said that its online growth had partially offset the closures of betting shops and casinos, in which it has a large proportion of its US gambling assets.

Retail net revenues fell 51 per cent to £1.1bn, while it reported an adjusted loss of £29.5m for retail, down from a profit of £83m in 2019.

The bookmaker, which traditionally has been more reliant on the UK for its revenues, said that it had had more marginal increases online than Entain with digital gambling revenues up 9 per cent to £803m and adjusted operating profit up 3 per cent to £122m.

Rishi Sunak defended his move to raise corporate tax rates, the first chancellor to do so since 1974, saying that the majority of small businesses will not be hit by the increase.

“We are protecting small businesses,” he said on Thursday, adding that “70 per cent will not be affected by the increase” in corporation tax that he announced a day earlier.

Sunak delivered a spend now, tax later Budget on Wednesday to propel the UK economy to recovery from the coronavirus crisis, giving a short-term boost to business investment followed by the largest tax rises on companies and households for a generation.

Even after the corporation tax increase, Sunak argued that the UK will have the lowest rate compared with its major competitors.

Sunak called his move to freeze the thresholds at which personal income tax is paid from 2022 a “progressive way to raise money”, adding that it “removes the incremental benefit that they might have experienced in the future as inflation fed through to their wages”.

The move will raise £8bn in the 2025-26 tax year.

Those on higher incomes will be more affected, he told Sky News on Thursday. “The richest 20 per cent will end up contributing 15 times more than those on a lower income,” he added.

The UK’s personal allowance is “by far and away the most generous personal allowance” than for “any other major country in the world”, he said.

“They are the right measures, they are fair and they will support our economic recovery,” he said.

Meggitt, the aerospace and defence components supplier, revealed the full extent of the hit to its business from the coronavirus pandemic as it swung to a full-year loss and withheld its dividend.

The company reported a pre-tax loss of £334m, compared with pre-tax profit of £286.7m the year before, after it was hit by one-off impairment charges and other write-downs. Excluding these charges, underlying operating profit was down 53 per cent to £191m, in line with analyst expectations. Group revenues fell 26 per cent to £1.68bn for the year.

Orders for the full year were down 38 per cent amid the unprecedented disruption to commercial air traffic last year from Covid-19. Deliveries of aircraft from manufacturers Airbus and Boeing — big customers of Meggitt — fell 34 per cent and 59 per cent respectively.

Tony Wood, chief executive, said the company had acted quickly to reduce costs and position the group for a recovery in civil aerospace. He cautioned, however, that the rollout of coronavirus vaccines and pent-up demand for travel would “take time to feed through into growth in global flight activity and the aftermarket”.

The company signalled that it expects to generate an increase in underlying operating profit for the year, as well as positive free cashflow, assuming no further disruptions to normal operations from the pandemic.

Melrose Industries warned that it does not expect a recovery in the civil aviation manufacturing market this year, after the dramatic collapse in air travel during the pandemic caused the FTSE 100 buyout specialist to slump to a heavy loss.

The London-based company, which purchased car and aircraft parts maker GKN in 2018, said there had been no recovery in demand for its parts used in civil aerospace manufacturing, with those sales falling more than a quarter last year compared with 2019.

That drop led the group, which buys and improves underperforming manufacturing businesses, to post a £535m pre-tax loss in the year ending December, against a £106m pre-tax profit a year earlier, on revenues that slipped from almost £11bn to £8.8bn.

The group proposed a dividend of 0.75 pence per share for 2020, as it produced more free cash flow on an adjusted basis at £628m than it did a year earlier.

Away from aerospace, trading at its other divisions such as automotive and power metallurgy improved in the second-half of the year.

The company confirmed that it is planning to sell Nortek Air Management, its US-based air conditioning business, which would be its biggest divestment in years.

The UK regulator will not require “lengthy” clinical studies to assess modifications to Covid-19 vaccines to tackle new variants, it announced on Thursday, in a decision that is likely to reassure manufacturers and public health officials.

The decision, which was taken by ACCESS, a consortium of regulators from the UK, Australia, Canada, Singapore and Switzerland, states that vaccine manufacturers would need to demonstrate that their modified jab produces a robust immune and antibody response using blood samples in the lab.

The manufacturers will not need to conduct “time-consuming” clinical studies in human participants like they did for the original vaccine discovery process, as these “do not add to the regulatory understanding of a vaccine’s safety, quality or effectiveness”, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said on Thursday.

“Our priority is to get effective vaccines to the public in as short a time as possible, without compromising on safety,” said the MHRA’s chief scientific officer Christian Schneider. “The public should be confident that no vaccine would be approved unless the expected high standards of safety, quality and effectiveness are met.” 

The approach is modelled on the one used to modify the seasonal flu vaccine every year to match new variants in circulation, the MHRA said.

Vaccine manufacturers will also have to provide some evidence that the modified inoculation is safe and of the same quality which will be examined alongside data from the original clinical trials in tens of thousands of human participants.

German authorities have extended the country’s lockdown until March 28, but said it can be eased if the rate of new infections slows down.

The decision was made during a nine-hour meeting between Angela Merkel, chancellor, and the leaders of Germany’s 16 states that lasted well into Wednesday evening.

The leaders agreed to introduce an emergency brake which would reverse any relaxation of the lockdown if infection rates in any area begin to rise again.

Merkel said after the meeting that Germany stood on the threshold of a new phase of the pandemic. She said the country must start to take steps to open up “but at the same time [take] steps that don’t set us back in the pandemic”. There were, she said, many examples of a “dramatic third wave” in Europe, and “this danger...exists for us, too”.

Merkel said Germany would speed up its vaccination campaign, which has been slower than in other European countries. From the end of March general practitioner practices will start to administer shots, and from next week all Germans will be offered free rapid tests for coronavirus every week. Companies will also be called on to give their employees tests.

From next Monday contact restrictions will be relaxed to allow meetings of five people from two households. In regions where the incidence of new infections has dropped to 35 per 100,000 over 7 days, meetings of ten people from three households will be allowed.

Bookshops, flower shops and garden centres will be allowed to reopen, and driving and flying schools can also restart operations. Once the incidence rate has fallen to 100 infections per 100,000 people, museums, galleries, zoos, botanical gardens can open, and retail outlets can also open, though customers will have to book time slots.

Lufthansa warned that it will not return to pre-crisis levels of business until at least the middle of the decade, after it slumped to the worst loss in its history in 2020.

The German group, which includes brands such as Austrian, Brussels, Swiss and Eurowings airlines, made an operating loss €5.5bn for the full year, compared with €2bn in profit in 2019, and is burning through €300m per month.

However its logistics unit, Lufthansa Cargo, which is involved in vaccine distribution, achieved pre-tax earnings of €772m, as prices for cargo capacity rose sharply due to the grounding of passenger aircraft, which tend to carry freight in their bellies. 

Lufthansa’s results come a week after British Airways owner IAG slumped to its worst-ever annual operating loss, of €7.4bn. The rival group also said it was burning through €185m per week.

Despite the worldwide vaccine rollouts, global passenger traffic was down 72 per cent in January, when compared to the same month in 2019, according to industry body Iata. That figure is even worse than the 69 per cent drop registered in December.

In an effort to entice more travellers, Lufthansa recently extended its free rebooking period to the end of May. 

“Internationally recognised, digital vaccination and test certificates must replace travel bans and quarantine so people can once again visit family and friends, meet business partners or learn about other countries and cultures," said chief executive Carsten Spohr.

Lufthansa said it expected its capacity level “to return to 90 percent” by the middle of the decade, but warned that it would likely offer just 40 to 50 per cent of its 2019 capacity in 2021.

The carrier, which employed almost 140,000 people before the pandemic, has already cut almost 30,000 jobs, and warned it will have to axe roughly 10,000 more in Germany.

India has recorded more than 17,400 new coronavirus infections over the last 24 hours — the highest new daily caseload since the end of January — as the spread of the virus reaccelerates amid relaxed public vigilance.  

The seven-day moving average of new daily cases has risen 42 per cent since mid-February, from 11,047 to 15,734 as of Thursday, highlighting a threat to India’s economic recovery from a new surge.

Rijo John, a health economist at the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, said nearly 60 per cent of all new Indian cases are being reported in the state of Maharashtra, home to the country’s financial capital Mumbai and the thriving business centre of Pune.

Kerala, a southern coastal state popular with tourists, accounts for another 20 per cent, though its new daily caseload is declining.

India had seen a sharp drop in daily cases from a peak of 100,000 per day in mid-September to a low of around 11,000 in mid-February. But as the country has relaxed restrictions and case numbers have dropped, many people have abandoned masking and social distancing. 

India now has an ambitious programme to vaccinate those most at risk, but New Delhi has struggled to step up the pace of rollout, which is being held back by technical glitches and vaccine hesitancy.

Brussels’ effort to get Europeans travelling again to help revive the continent’s battered tourism industry is already hitting turbulence before it could get off the ground. 

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen this week announced plans for the creation of a “Digital Green Pass” — a scheme to help EU citizens travel safely after months of restrictive lockdown measures despite contagious Covid-19 variants.

“The aim is to gradually enable [Europeans] to move safely in the European Union or abroad — for work or tourism,” said von der Leyen. The proposal is due on March 17. 

The initiative followed pressure from tourism-dependent countries in southern Europe to help them salvage the summer season as immunisation programmes were rolled out across the bloc. 

The merits of a vaccine passport scheme were debated by EU leaders at a videoconference last week. France and Belgium were among the countries that pushed back on the idea, arguing it would discriminate against younger travellers who were last in line for jabs.

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Asia-Pacific equities fell on Thursday after negative sentiment on Wall Street and concerns over rising bond yields spilled over into the region. 

Japan’s Topix index lost 1.8 per cent, while in China the CSI-300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks dropped 2.7 per cent. 

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng lost 2.6 per cent, while Australia and South Korean equities were also lower. The moves came after the S&P 500 fell 1.3 per cent on Wednesday, with tech stocks declining sharply for the second day in a row and US 10-year Treasury yields climbing to about 1.47 per cent. 

In Asian trading, the 10-year US Treasury was trading at just below 1.48 per cent. The US Senate has begun debating President Joe Biden’s $1.9tn stimulus package, with analysts predicting it could boost not only economic growth but also consumer prices.

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More than 760,000 Indians received a Covid-19 jab on Wednesday, as New Delhi stepped up the pace of its vaccination drive by extending the previously limited hours of inoculations.

New Delhi announced on Wednesday that private hospitals would be permitted to administer vaccinations around the clock, seven days a week, having earlier decided that the jabs could only be given between 9am and 5pm.

The unlimited hours will speed up the process and help ensure that the senior citizens now eligible to be vaccinated are not turned away from hospitals, as they previously were when prescribed hours came to an end.

The move coincided with a major boost for India's vaccination campaign, as Bharat Biotech announced that its indigenously developed Covaxin vaccine had an efficacy rate of 81 per cent.

The Indian government had been strongly criticised for its decision to use Covaxin, alongside a locally produced version of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, in its vaccine drive starting last month, despite the lack of publicly available efficacy data for Covaxin.

Public health experts said the inclusion of Covaxin had contributed to vaccine hesitancy, with health workers reluctant to be vaccinated. But the release of the efficacy data — days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and many members of his Cabinet received the jab — is likely to boost public confidence and give more momentum to the programme.  

India launched the second phase of its ambitious vaccination campaign on Monday, providing jabs to people over the age of 60 and those over 45 with other severe illnesses.

However, the move has been hindered by glitches with the government’s centralised technology platform, CoWin, on which all potential recipients must register before they can receive the jab.

Registrations were only opened on Monday, the day the vaccines themselves were made available, and many have struggled to use the platform. Hospitals have also complained of problems, including servers down for lengthy periods, resulting in crowds at hospitals operating as vaccination centres as people flock to them in the hope of getting a jab.

Despite their successes in controlling coronavirus outbreaks, Asian economies need to speed up vaccine rollouts to reopen their borders and allow vital business travel to resume, according to a report.

Countries in Asia-Pacific that effectively contained the virus “felt it less imperative to be the first or fastest with the vaccine”, but they now need to reach herd immunity before they can safely reopen borders to visitors, according to the report from Moody’s Analytics.

Most countries in the region will reach herd immunity in 2022 or 2023 at current projections, the report found.

“While international business travel may never return to pre-Covid-19 levels as online video communication replaces in-person meetings, travel for critical moments in business practices will still be necessary,” said Steve Cochrane, chief APAC economist with Moody’s Analytics.

Singapore and China are two countries that have been successful in containing the virus  and are also regular destinations for business travellers who need to carry out “on the ground assessments regarding business expansion and assessment”.

Singapore recently opened a “bubble” hotel facility allowing business travellers to the city-state to hold meetings from behind glass, thus avoiding 14-day quarantines.  

The need to vaccinate populations is greater for countries that have been less successful in containing the virus, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. 

“A rapid rollout is essential to opening their economies and bringing the service industries back to life while protecting public health,” Cochrane said.

New Zealanders who had paid for overseas travel that was then cancelled due to Covid-19 have had more than half of the total returned through a reimbursement scheme incentivising the local travel industry.  

The Consumer Travel Reimbursement Scheme has helped return more than NZ$352m ($255m) of refunds and credits from an estimated NZ$690m locked up overseas, the country’s consumer affairs minister David Clark said on Thursday.

“The scheme has seen millions of dollars locked up offshore returned to everyday New Zealanders, who were at risk of never seeing a cent,” Clark said.

Launched in October last year, the scheme pays New Zealand-based travel agents 7.5 per cent of the value of all cash refunds they are able to recover, and 5 per cent of the value of all credits successfully secured or rebooked for international travel.

“By incentivising travel agencies to recover funds on behalf of their customers, the scheme continues to benefit both consumers and industry,” Clark said.

In a boost for equitable vaccine distribution in Africa, Sudan and Rwanda have received hundreds of thousands of jabs through the World Health Organization supported Covax initiative, the UN Children’s Fund reported. 

Some 800,000 Oxford/AstraZeneca doses touched down in Khartoum, making Sudan the first country in the Middle East and North Africa region to receive the vaccine, according to a Unicef statement.

Rwanda also received 240,000 Oxford/AstraZeneca doses and anticipates a further 102,000 shots from BioNTech/Pfizer.  

The two nations will launch vaccine drives initially targeting healthcare workers and vulnerable groups.

South Korea’s economy grew 1.2 per cent last quarter from the previous three months, faster than the Bank of Korea’s initial estimates, as exports grew.

The stronger than expected quarterly data came as both exports and consumption performed better than previous estimates on economic reopening and stimulus measures. However, the economy still contracted by 1 per cent last year on the effects of the pandemic.

The BoK has forecast the economy will grow 3 per cent this year.

The country’s exports rose 9.5 per cent in February from a year earlier, extending their gains for the fourth consecutive month on strong demand for chips and autos.

But inflation picked up last month as food prices surged on strong demand around the lunar new year holiday. Consumer prices rose 1.1 per cent from a year earlier, accelerating from a 0.6 per cent gain in January, according to the government statistics office.

The country continues to grapple with an upswing in infections, with 424 new cases reported on Thursday, taking the total caseload to 91,240. Seven more deaths were reported, increasing the death toll to 1,619, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.     

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia will begin administering the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine from Friday.

Morrison said the rollout was given the green light after batch testing of doses from overseas. The first shots will be given in South Australia.

Morrison added that the initial doses will ultimately be followed by the approval of vaccines manufactured in Australia.

“Let’s not forget that 50m of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be made right here in Australia, in Melbourne,” he said. “And we took the decision to have the sovereign capability to do that because we did not want to be … overly reliant or dependent on supply chains from somewhere else.”

Australia aims to offer vaccines to its entire population by the end of October. 

The country has been successful in eradicating small pockets of infections, with more than 30 days of no local cases nationally this year.

The state of Victoria, which was forced into a short lockdown last month to control an outbreak of the variant first discovered in the UK, reported a sixth consecutive day of no cases on Thursday.

Covid-19 hospitalisations in the US continued to fall on Wednesday, remaining at a level last seen in late October, although daily infections climbed.

There were 45,462 Covid-19 patients in hospital, down from 46,388 a day earlier, according to a Financial Times analysis of Covid Tracking Project data. Hospitalisations have dropped every day for the last seven weeks.

States tallied a combined total of 66,836 new coronavirus cases, compared with 54,248 on Tuesday. But the weekly average for new cases fell to 63,599, the lowest mark since October 23.

The increase in infections on Wednesday coincided with a rise in new tests to 1.4m, the most in four days.

The US attributed a further 2,449 deaths to Covid-19 and has reported 1,942 fatalities per day over the last week.

Shares in Asia-Pacific fell in early trading on Thursday after a bond sell-off resumed in the US.

The Topix in Japan shed 0.9 per cent, the Kospi in South Korea fell 1.5 per cent and the S&P/ASX 200 was down 1.4 per cent.

Those moves came after a sell-off in US government bonds gathered pace on Wednesday, sending technology shares lower, amid fears that the Biden administration’s stimulus package spells higher inflation.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq tumbled 2.7 per cent while the S&P 500 fell 1.3 per cent.  

S&P 500 futures were down 0.5 per cent in Asia trading.

England’s decline in Covid-19 infections is slowing down, the country’s latest survey shows. 

The React-1 study carried out by Imperial College London found that the level of infection in February — one in 204 people — had fallen by two-thirds since January. 

But during February the decline flattened out across the country as a whole and in some places there were signs of infections beginning to rise. 

The Imperial researchers estimate that Covid-19 prevalence now has a nationwide halving time of 31 days and an R value (the average number of people who are infected by someone with the virus) of 0.86.

During the month infections continued to fall quite fast in northern England but not in London and the south east, where there were tentative indications of a slight increase.

Paul Elliott, React-1 director, said: “The fall in infections our study has observed since January demonstrates that national public health measures are working. But these new findings showing that some areas are experiencing apparent growth reinforce the need for everyone to continue to stick to the rules and help keep infections down.”

Further indications of the direction in which the epidemic is heading in the UK are expected on Friday when the Office for National Statistics will release results of its separate infections survey.

Nine out of 10 deaths from coronavirus have occurred in countries with high obesity levels, according to World Health Organization-backed research that sets out the stark correlation between excessive weight and lives lost to the disease. 

The study from the World Obesity Federation (WOF), which represents scientists, medical professionals and researchers from more than 50 regional and national obesity associations, showed mortality rates were 10 times higher where at least 50 per cent of the population was overweight. 

It offers fresh insight into why people in some countries die at far greater rates after catching the virus than in others. 

Age has been seen as the biggest predictor for severe outcomes, which has led to priority being given to older people in most countries’ Covid-19 vaccine rollouts. But the WOF said its report “shows for the first time that overweight populations come a close second”. It is now calling for this group to be prioritised for immunisation.

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Mexico’s central bank has raised its forecasts for 2021 growth to a range between 2.8 per cent and 6.7 per cent, compared with previous estimates of 0.6 per cent to 5.3 per cent.

The central forecast – 4.8 per cent growth – compares with 3.3 per cent previously.

At the upper end, Banxico’s forecast is the most bullish to date, but presenting its quarterly report, the bank highlighted that risks were tilted to the downside.

The government is forecasting 4.6 per cent growth in 2021, but President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said he believes the economy is bouncing back from Covid-19 and will expand 5 per cent.

For next year, Banxico’s central scenario is 3.3 per cent growth compared with 2.6 per cent previously.

The central bank expects inflation to end this year at 3.6 per cent – its goal is 3 per cent, plus or minus one point, and for consumer prices to hit its 3 per cent goal by the second quarter next year.

President Joe Biden criticised the governors of Texas and Mississippi after they moved to end mask mandates and other coronavirus restrictions in their states.

Several states have loosened or rescinded curbs on businesses and social activity in recent days, encouraged by the decline in Covid-19 hospitalisations and the increasing number of people vaccinated against the virus. Texas and Mississippi on Tuesday announced they would no longer mandate mask-wearing and end capacity limits on businesses, drawing criticism from some lawmakers who said the rollbacks went too far.

“I think it’s a big mistake,” Biden, a Democrat, said on Wednesday when asked about the decisions. He added: “Look, I hope everybody’s realised by now, we’ve managed to make a difference. We are on the cusp of being able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way in which we were able to get vaccines in people’s arms.

“The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime everything is fine, take off your masks, forget it. It still matters.”

Tate Reeves, Mississippi’s governor, fired back in a tweet. “Mississippians don’t need handlers. As numbers drop, they can assess their choices and listen to experts. I guess I just think we should trust Americans, not insult them,” he said.

Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, called for his state to be “100 per cent” open, saying it can continue to contain the spread of coronavirus as more residents, particularly seniors, get vaccinated. Reeves, also a Republican, on Tuesday said “the risk of overwhelming our hospitals with severe Covid cases is coming to a close”.

The two states maintained recommendations that residents wear face coverings when social distancing was not possible.

In Texas, businesses may limit capacity or require additional safety measures on their own, the governor’s office said.

Brazil on Wednesday reported a record number of fatalities from Covid-19 for the second consecutive day as a severe second wave of the pandemic gathers pace in the Latin American nation.

Officials in Brasília reported 1,910 deaths and more than 70,000 new cases. The number of fatalities surpassed the previous record of 1,641 daily deaths, set just a day earlier.

So far more than 260,000 people have died in Brazil as a result of Covid-19, the world’s second-highest death toll in absolute numbers.

New York loosened restrictions on residential gatherings and public events, as the state laid out plans to begin distributing the recently approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Gatherings in people’s homes can have as many as 10 attendees indoors or 25 attendees outdoors beginning on March 22.

Covid-19 variants may be less dangerous to vaccinated people and recovered patients than previously thought, according to a study conducted by researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and the University of California. The study found that the human body produces a strong cellular immune response to some of the most worrying new strains.

The pace of growth in US services economic activity expanded at the slowest clip in nine months as severe winter weather weighed down on activity despite coronavirus restrictions continuing to ease. The Institute for Supply Management said on Wednesday its non-manufacturing activity index fell to 55.3 in February — the lowest reading since May.

France faces a worrying rise in coronavirus infections and may have to impose further restrictions, but is looking for the beginnings of a return to normality from mid-April. “The return of a more normal life is in sight, and the places that make up our social life will reopen — that’s a perspective at the end of the tunnel that we should have in mind,” government spokesman Gabriel Attal said.

The Covid-19 vaccine developed by India’s Bharat Biotech has been shown to have 81 per cent efficacy in phase 3 trials, interim results showed. The trial of 25,800 participants provided evidence that Covaxin is effective against the virus variant first detected in the UK.

Police in China and South Africa have seized thousands of doses of fake Covid-19 vaccines and made more than 80 arrests after uncovering a criminal network that was distributing counterfeit jabs, according to Interpol. The export scam was found out after police in eastern China identified a network selling counterfeit inoculations.