Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to key eventsSkip to navigation

Covid-19 unlikely to be ever eradicated, warns Prof Chris Whitty – as it happened

This article is more than 2 years old

This blog is now closed. You can keep up to date with all our coronavirus coverage here.

 Updated 
Thu 6 May 2021 19.00 EDTFirst published on Thu 6 May 2021 00.30 EDT
A health worker prepares to administer a swab test. Seven cases of the India variant have been identified in Northern Ireland.
A health worker prepares to administer a swab test. Seven cases of the India variant have been identified in Northern Ireland. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images
A health worker prepares to administer a swab test. Seven cases of the India variant have been identified in Northern Ireland. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

Live feed

Key events
Lorenzo Tondo
Lorenzo Tondo

On Wednesday, the Benfratelli hospital in Palermo, Sicily, started to vaccinate for Covid migrants with pre-existing health conditions, as in the rest of Europe asylum seekers and undocumented persons risk being left out of the national vaccination programmes.

‘’I am proud and satisfied,’’ says Tullio Prestileo, a Sicilian doctor of infectious diseases who led the vaccination programme on migrants in the island.

“We have successfully started to vaccinate migrants – all with pre-existing diseases, from Algeria, Nigeria, the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Mali. As far as I know, we are the first hospital in Italy to have started. It is a first step towards the vaccination of all migrants, present in the area, who have the right to health, like everyone else. It is not possible to believe in first and second class human beings.”

A number of charities and UN agencies have in recent months raised the issue of migrant vaccination, saying: “No one is safe until everyone is.”

The UN migration agency (IOM) has called on governments to count and include all migrants present in their territories – regardless of legal immigration status – in national Covid-19 vaccine distribution plans.

“Vaccines are one of our most important and cost-effective tools to prevent outbreaks, protect individuals and therefore keep entire communities safe and healthy,” said the IOM director general, António Vitorino. “Protecting the most vulnerable from health risks is critical for everyone’s safety.”

According to the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), in Italy today there are about 600,000 undocumented migrants. In the country, up until 2020, there are currently more than 1 million non-EU citizens with temporary residence permits.

“The time has come to make people understand that vaccinations cannot have bureaucratic barriers and that one cannot think of prioritising vaccinations on the basis of an identity card,” added Prestileo, ‘ “because the virus affects everyone, regardless of their passport. We must all get vaccinated in order to defeat it.”

Share
Updated at 

Nepal is struggling to contain an explosion in Covid-19 cases, as fears grow that the situation in the Himalayan country may be as bad, if not worse, than in neighbouring India, with which it shares a long and porous border.

Following warnings by health officials earlier this week that the country was on the brink of losing control of its outbreak, Nepal has appealed for urgent international help.

As the country reported its highest daily number of new infections – 8,605 – the prime minister, KP Sharma Oli, who has been criticised for his handling of the crisis, asked the army to help manage emergency facilities to take pressure off the health system.

Peter Beaumont, a senior reporter on the Guardian’s global development desk, has the full story here:

Share
Updated at 

Reuters reports:

Moderna Inc raised its 2021 sales forecast for its Covid-19 shot by 4.3% to $19.2bn on Thursday, reflecting demand from countries looking to return to normalcy through rapid vaccine rollouts.

Deals for ‘booster’ doses, nations looking to stock up supplies for 2022 and beyond and a likely authorisation for use of the vaccines in children have led Moderna and its larger rival Pfizer to ramp up their supplies.

Moderna said an initial analysis of a study in adolescents aged 12-17 years showed an efficacy rate of 96% for its vaccine.

Share
Updated at 

Foreign tourism in Spain in March fell 76% from a year ago when a lockdown was imposed in the middle of the month, data shows.

Spain, the world’s second most visited country before the pandemic, received 490,088 foreign tourists in March, down from just over 2 million in March 2020, according to the National Statistics Institute.

Compared with pre-pandemic March 2019, the number was down more than 90%, but it was, however, higher than the 284,000 tourists registered in February, Reuters reports.

People on Playa de Palma beach in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, last month. Photograph: Enrique Calvo/Reuters
Share
Updated at 

Just over 5.6m lateral flow device tests for Covid-19 were conducted in England in the week to 28 April, according to the latest Test and Trace figures – down slightly from 5.8m in the previous week.

LFD tests are swab tests that give results in 30 minutes or less without the need for processing in a laboratory.

The number of LFD tests peaked at just over 7.6m in the week to 17 March, which coincided with the return of secondary students to school, PA Media reports.

Since 9 April, everyone in England has been eligible for rapid Covid-19 tests twice a week.

By contrast, 960,867 polymerase chain reaction tests – swab tests that are processed in a laboratory – were conducted in the week to 28 April.

Share
Updated at 

This has been shared by the World Health Organization regional office for Africa:

"With delays and shortages of vaccine supplies, African countries are slipping further behind the rest of the world in the #COVID19 vaccine roll-out, now accounting for only 1% of the vaccines administered worldwide. Down from 2% a few weeks ago." - Dr @MoetiTshidi

— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) May 6, 2021
Share
Updated at 

Reuters reports:

Leaders of G20 nations are to commit for the first time to fully fund a World Health Organization scheme to distribute Covid-19 vaccines and drugs to poorer nations, the draft conclusions of a summit show, in a move that would unblock nearly $20bn.

The document, subject to changes before a global health summit to be held in Rome on 21 May, also says that leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies are committed to urgent action this year to boost manufacturing capacity for anti-Covid technologies, but omits mention of vaccine patent waivers.

According to the draft, leaders will for the first time express an explicit commitment “to fair and full financing of the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator strategy”, which is the WHO’s scheme to make Covid-19 vaccines, drugs and tests available to everybody in the world.

A total of 15,593 people tested positive for Covid-19 in England at least once in the week to 28 April, the latest Test and Trace figures indicate.

This is down 8% on the previous week and is the lowest number since the week to 2 September 2020, as PA Media reports.

Germany wants to allow as much holidaying as it responsibly can this summer, foreign minister Heiko Maas has said, according to Reuters.

Maas told a news conference with Turkey’s foreign minister in Berlin:

I believe that people need a perspective. We want as much holiday as is responsible in the summer.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass attends EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium on March 22, 2021. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Most viewed

Most viewed