Delegation self-isolating after members test positive for Covid; Seb Coe says Games in July will be ‘extremely good’ even without spectators
- Indian delegation forced to self-isolate in London for Covid
- UK pledges millions to bolster testing for coronavirus variants
- US won’t reach herd immunity this year. So how will it live with Covid?
- Analysis: Britain’s reasons for Covid optimism
- See all our coronavirus coverage
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has reiterated that the Tokyo Olympics will take place in July despite the rising number of Covid-19 cases in Japan – and promised that the competition will be “extremely good” even if there are no spectators.
Coe was speaking after attending a half marathon test event in Japan’s northern city of Sapporo, which he said made him confident that the Olympic marathon and race walk events would be held successfully in the city after the Games open in 78 days’ time.
The challenges are big. I don’t believe any Olympic Games has been delivered under more difficult circumstances. These Games have an overlay of complexity that is beyond most comprehension.
Related: Sebastian Coe expects Tokyo Olympics to go ahead after test event in Japan
Hello everyone, this is Yohannes Lowe. I’ll be running the blog until the evening (UK time). As always, feel free to get in touch on Twitter if you have any story tips.
That is your lot from me, Martin Belam, this morning. I’m not sure John Edward Taylor could have imagined live-blogging a pandemic when the Manchester Guardian published its first edition 200 years ago today. Andrew Sparrow has our UK politics live blog , which is very election focussed today, and Yohannes Lowe will be along shortly with all the global coronavirus news and the top UK Covid lines.
Health officials have rushed to vaccinate thousands of people in Bangkok as new Covid-19 cases spread through densely populated low-income areas in the capital’s central business district.
The current outbreak spread from night entertainment spots to the Klong Toey area, an area of Bangkok with about 100,000 people living in a 1 square mile area. There, health workers are trying to vaccinate up to 3,000 people per day, hoping to have at least 50,000 people inoculated within two weeks. They are also testing intensively to try to identify and isolate those who are infected.
Gibraltar has announced it will not require UK tourists to be tested for coronavirus when foreign holidays resume.
In a phrase further torturing the very concept of what a “staycation” actually is, chief minister Fabian Picardo said the Rock offers a “great British staycation in the Mediterranean”.
Andy Bruce and Alistair Smout at Reuters have summed up one of the key moments from this morning’s UK media round – vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi says the UK government is assessing the possible need for a third Covid-19 vaccine dose for the elderly and vulnerable, to be given in the autumn, after all adults are given their initial two-shot regime.
“The clinicians haven’t yet made their decision when they will need to boost, whether to give more immunity to the most vulnerable, to increase the durability of the protection, or to deal with a variant,” Zahawi told Sky News.
Related: UK pledges £29m more to fast-track vaccines against Covid variants
The G7 meeting in London is getting under way for a second day of their first summit for two years. Here’s the UK’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab meeting with US secretary of state Antony Blinken.
Related: Indian delegation at G7 in London forced to self-isolate for Covid
Unlike their Australian counterparts, who face a travel ban on returning home, eight of England’s 11 Indian Premier League players returned to Heathrow this morning and are beginning a 10-day hotel quarantine, the England and Wales Cricket Board has announced.
Australia’s cricketers will escape the worsening Covid-19 situation in India by flying to Sri Lanka or the Maldives before taking a chartered flight home once the government’s controversial travel ban is lifted.
The total number of deaths registered in England and Wales was below the five-year average for the seventh consecutive week, the ONS said this morning.
PA Media reports 9,941 deaths were registered in the week to 23 April, which is 5.3% below the average for the corresponding period in 2015-19. Before the seven most recent weeks, the last time deaths were below average was in the week to 4 September 2020.
Joe Pike from Sky News has this latest on the two positive Covid cases among the Indian delegation to the G7 meeting in London.
I'm also told:
-Indian delegation were given diplomatic exemptions to quarantine rules on arrival to UK.
-But a daily testing regime is in place.
-Indian delegates had meetings yesterday but due to social distancing/ mask wearing, PHE says not need for contacts to self-isolate.
Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyan Jaishankar has tweeted to say he will join ongoing G7 meetings in London virtually after he was informed about exposure to people with possible coronavirus infection.
“Was made aware yesterday evening of exposure to possible Covid positive cases,” Jaishankar said in a tweet. “As a measure of abundant caution and also out of consideration for others, I decided to conduct my engagements in the virtual mode. That will be the case with the G7 meeting today as well.”
Was made aware yesterday evening of exposure to possible Covid positive cases. As a measure of abundant caution and also out of consideration for others, I decided to conduct my engagements in the virtual mode. That will be the case with the G7 Meeting today as well.
India’s entire delegation to the G7 summit in London is self-isolating after two of its members tested positive for Covid-19, the British government said this morning.
“Two delegates tested positive so the entire delegation is now self isolating,” a British official told Reuters.
Senior diplomat tells @SkyNews:
"We deeply regret that Mr Jaishankar will be unable to attend the meeting in person today and will attend virtually. But that is exactly why we have put in place strict COVID protocols and daily testing."
Iraq’s vaccine rollout had been faltering for weeks, but a populist Shiite cleric’s public endorsement of vaccinations – and images of him getting the shot last week – have begun to turn things around.
Abdulrahman Zeyad at Associated Press reports from Baghdad that hundreds of followers of Muqtada al-Sadr are now heading to clinics to follow his example, underscoring the power of sectarian loyalties in Iraq and deep mistrust of the state.
A member of the UK government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said unregulated international travel “can be very dangerous indeed” but there are steps which can minimise the risk.
PA Media reports Prof Adam Finn told Sky News: “We certainly got our hands very comprehensively burned in in March 2020 when very large numbers of people returned from holidays in Europe with the virus and set the pandemic going in the UK at a very fast rate.
The other big line that is coming out of Australia this morning is the legal challenge to the government’s travel ban on people returning from India.
Rod McGuirk reports for Associated Press from Canberra that lawyers for Gary Newman – not that one – one of 9,000 Australians prevented from returning home from India, has made an urgent application to the federal court in Sydney for a judge to review the travel ban imposed under the biosecurity act by health minister Greg Hunt.
A New South Wales man in Australia has tested positive for Covid-19 in a new case of community transmission that has health authorities concerned due to his level of activity while potentially infectious.
The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the man, in his 50s, had been “very active in the inner east” areas of Sydney prior to being tested on Tuesday. She said he had been “very good” at registering his details at locations he visited, including a cinema at Bondi Junction and several barbecue stores.
Related: NSW Covid case: man tests positive after being ‘very active’ in Sydney while infectious
UK vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi has been very quotable on his media round today. PA Media reports he has said the NHS is piloting Covid vaccine and test certification on its smartphone app.
When asked how soon this will be up and running, he told Sky News: “The app is one part of the certification process, so it’s very important that people have the capability to be able to demonstrate they’ve had a test, as we require other essential travel from non-red list countries to have a pre-departure test.”
Jessica Glenza writes for us this morning asking “How will the US live with Covid?” if it won’t reach herd immunity this year:
For many months, members of the public have equated a return to “normal life” with the phrase “herd immunity”: that threshold reached when the Covid-19 pandemic would be boxed in by immunization campaigns, find no new hosts and society would return to a 2019-style normal.
Related: The US won’t reach herd immunity this year. So how will we live with Covid?
India accounted for nearly half of the Covid-19 cases reported worldwide last week and one in four of deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
“India accounts for over 90% of both cases and deaths in the WHO southeast Asia region, as well as 46% of global cases and 25% of global deaths reported in the past week,” the Geneva-based agency said in its weekly epidemiological report, report Reuters
Iris Samuels reports for Associated Press today on one cross-border vaccine initiative that has been a success.
The Blackfeet tribe in northern Montana in the United States provided about 1,000 surplus vaccines last month to its First Nations relatives and others from across the border in Canada, in an illustration of the disparity in speed at which the two countries are distributing doses. While more than 30% of adults in the US are fully vaccinated, in Canada that figure is about 3%.
Incidentally Graeme Wearden has just launched our Business Live blog, which is currently leading on the news that UK car sales are recovering as showrooms being to reopen after lockdown. You can follow that here …
Related: UK car sales recover as showrooms reopen after lockdown – business live
British officials are looking at which Covid-19 vaccines would offer the best booster shot for vulnerable people later this year and no decisions have been taken yet, UK vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi has said this morning.
“The clinicians haven’t yet made their decision when they will need to boost, whether to give more immunity to the most vulnerable, to increase the durability of the protection, or to deal with a variant,” Reuters report Zahawi telling Sky News.
I learn that a third vaccine jab is to be offered to all over 50s in the autumn, and that is likely to eradicate the threat from all Covid-19 variants by Christmas. My story in @TheTimes this morning. https://t.co/uhw5DvG5wY
India has released $6.7bn in cheap financing for vaccine makers, hospitals and other health firms, to counter the devastating coronavirus surge gripping the country.
Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das also vowed to deploy “unconventional” measures if the crisis worsens. “The devastating speed with which the virus affects different regions of the country has to be matched by swift and wide-ranging actions,” Das said.
On 22 June 1918, the Manchester Guardian reported that a flu epidemic was moving through the British Isles. It was noted to be ‘by any means a common form of influenza’. Eventually, it took the lives of more than 50 million people around the world.
In a special episode of our Science Weekly podcast to mark the Guardian’s 200th anniversary, Nicola Davis looks back on the 1918 flu pandemic and how it was reported at the time. Speaking to science journalist Laura Spinney, and ex-chief reporter at the Observer and science historian Dr Mark Honigsbaum, Nicola asks about the similarities and differences to our experiences with Covid-19, and what we can learn for future pandemics.
Related: What can we learn from the 1918 flu pandemic? – podcast
From one Martin to another, this is Martin Belam in London picking up the blog for the next few hours. Reuters have a quick blast on real world data from South Korea about the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines.
Data by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) showed that in people over 60 the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was 89.7% effective in preventing infection at least two weeks after a first dose was given, while the AstraZeneca shot was 86.0% effective.
The birth rate in the US has seen its biggest fall for nearly 50 years, according to government data, with the economic uncertainty of the pandemic believed to have contributed to a fall in pregnancies.
A study by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the rate of births per woman fell to 1.6 last year, which is well below the 2.1 required for a generation to replace itself.
Related: US birth rate sees biggest fall for nearly 50 years
On a lighter note, a town in Japan has used Covid relief funds to pay for a statue of a giant squid.
The creatures are considered a delicacy in Noto on Japan’s west coast and local officials believe the 13-metre long sculpture will boost tourism in the region.
Britain’s successful vaccination programme and staggered reopening out of lockdown has provided genuine grounds for optimism in tackling the pandemic, writes our science editor, Ian Sample.
But he argues that with fatalities and infections continuing to fall, the next step is crucial, especially persuading more young people to get vaccinated.
Many young people won’t be fully vaccinated until later in the year, but it is crucial to get high coverage in these age groups, not only to reduce the chances of infections reaching more vulnerable people, but to spare the younger people themselves from the risk of severe disease or the debilitating impact of long Covid.
Related: As UK nears zero Covid deaths, there’s good reason for optimism
Cricketers from around the world who travelled to take part in the Indian Premier League face a battle to return home after the competition was suspended amid the country’s worsening Covid crisis.
Three of the eleven English players in the league – Chris Woakes, Sam Billings and Tom Curran – have booked flights home but will have to quarantine on their arrival in Lndon. Others may have to wait longer, while Australian players face beiung stuck in limbo because their government has banned anyone travelling between the two countries. Test stars Pat Cummings and Steve Smith are among those starnded in India.
Related: The IPL failed by ignoring stark warning signs of India’s Covid crisis | Anand Vasu
Deaths in India from Covid rose by a record 3,780 in the past 24 hours, health ministry data showed, while daily infections rose by 382,315.
It comes a day after India followed the United States by passing 20 million infections as the virus continues to squeeze the world’s second-most populous nation in its grip.
Hong Kong will lift its ban on flights from the UK and Ireland this week, if the local coronavirus situation and other “relevant overseas places” does not change, our correspondent in Taiwan, Helen Davidson reports.
The ban on incoming flights has been in place since December, when it was announced suddenly in response to the virulent strain emerging in the UK. It left a number of Hongkongers stranded in the UK.
Considering that the epidemic situation is still unstable in the existing extremely high-risk places such as India, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Brazil and South Africa, the Government will continue to restrict people who have stayed in those places from boarding a flight for Hong Kong.
New South Wales, the largest state in Australia, has recorded its first Covid case for a month, health officials said.
It is understood that the case, a man in his 50s living in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, has not travelled overseas in recent times and he does not work in a hotel quarantine, border or health role.
Tokyo could be be placed under extended lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus less than three months before the city hosts the Olympic Games, according to local media reports.
The Japanese capital and other cities including Osaka and Kyoto were placed into emergency lockdown on 25 April and were expected to emerge from restrictions next Tuesday, 11 May.
Good morning/afternoon/evening wherever you are. I’m Martin Farrer and welcome to our live coverage of the global coronavirus pandemic.
Here are some of the main developments from the the past few hours to get you up to speed with what is going on:
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