Summary
That’s all from me, Léonie Chao-Fong on the global coronavirus blog for today as I cross over to our Ukraine coverage. Please feel free to join me there. In the meantime, here’s a recap of all the international Covid developments:
- Six African countries – Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia – will be the first on the continent to receive the technology needed to produce their own mRNA vaccines from a scheme headed by the World Health Organization. The project aims to end much of the reliance of African countries on vaccine manufacturers outside the continent.
- Covid antibody levels for people who have had the AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech jab decrease with age as well as being higher in women and people who had previously had Covid, data released by the British Medical Journal shows.
-
Scrapping free coronavirus tests and the requirement to self-isolate in England could result in a “sudden change” in the public’s behaviour and lead to “rapid epidemic growth”, the UK’s government advisers have warned. The government’s advisory pandemic modelling group SPI-M-O cautioned against easing rules any further ahead of the prime minister’s unveiling of his “Living with Covid” plan on Monday.
- South Korea reported 109,831 new Covid cases on Friday, marking the first time daily reported cases have exceeded 100,000 since the pandemic began. Despite the spike in cases, authorities announced a partial relaxing of some restrictions including a later curfew for restaurants and bars.
- In Japan, health officials have now approved a plan for more targeted restrictions in areas where infections are still relatively high. From Sunday, limits on mobility and commerce will end in five prefectures where the virus appears to have peaked, but curbs will be extended until 6 March in 17 areas with a high level of cases.
- People no longer have to show a Covid pass by law in order to get into large events, cinemas and nightclubs in Wales after the rule expired at midnight. As of Friday, venues are no longer required to ask customers for proof of two Covid jabs, or a recent negative lateral flow test result.
- As Hong Kong finds itself engulfed in soaring Covid cases and hospitals reach breaking point, charities are warning that the city’s foreign domestic workers are being “abandoned”, with some forced to sleep rough or being denied treatment after testing positive.
- Germany’s health minister, Karl Lauterbach, has dismissed calls for a speedier relaxation of restrictions to control Covid, warning that the country was in a more vulnerable situation than comparable countries owing to the relatively high number of unvaccinated people in the over 60 age bracket.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) said countries struggling with surging Covid infections may shorten the recommended quarantine duration of 14 days in some situations. The UN agency said its new guidelines may be helpful for places where essential services are under pressure.
Thank you for following along today and have a lovely weekend.
Updated
Peter Beaumont, senior reporter on our Global Development desk, on a groundbreaking project headed by the WHO announced today:
Six African countries – Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia – will be the first on the continent to receive the technology needed to produce their own mRNA vaccines from a scheme headed by the World Health Organization.
The project aims to assist low- and middle-income countries in manufacturing mRNA vaccines at scale and according to international standards, with the aim of ending much of the reliance of African countries on vaccine manufacturers outside the continent.
The announcement comes in the same week that BioNTech, which produces the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 – itself an mRNA vaccine – announced it planned to deliver factory facilities built out of shipping containers to several African countries to allow the Pfizer vaccine to be produced on the continent.
Primarily set up to address the Covid-19 pandemic, the global mRNA hub has the potential to expand manufacturing capacity for other vaccines and products, such as insulin to treat diabetes, cancer medicines and, potentially, vaccines for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.
The WHO established its global mRNA technology transfer hub after vaccine hoarding by wealthy countries – and problems with supply from India, as companies prioritised sales to governments that could pay the highest price – meant low- and middle-income countries were pushed to the back of the queue for Covid-19 vaccines.
The scheme’s ultimate goal is to spread capacity for national and regional production to all health technologies.
No other event like the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that reliance on a few companies to supply global public goods is limiting, and dangerous,
said the WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announcing the first recipients of the technology on Friday after visiting the hub in South Africa last week.
