Pfizer vaccine found 94% effective in major study
Coronavirus live news: Pfizer vaccine found 94% effective in major study; EU states split over vaccine passports
9.55pm EST 21:55
In other news from Australia:
Baarack the sheep shorn of 35kg fleece after being found roaming in rural Australia – video9.39pm EST 21:39
Australia's Olympians to be encouraged to take vaccine but Games will be 'safe'Australia’s Olympics athletes will not be required to have a Covid-19 vaccination but will be encouraged to do so as planning ramps up for July’s delayed Tokyo Games, the Australian Associated Press reports.
IOC vice-president and AOC president John Coates said planning had reached the finite stage for the showpiece, set to begin one year later than first planned on 23 July:
9.23pm EST 21:23
China's Sinopharm vaccine 72.5% effective, company saysChina is moving ahead with two more Covid vaccines in the regulatory process, one from state-owned company Sinopharm and another from a private company CanSino, AP reports.
Both vaccines have submitted been to regulators for approval this week.
CanSino said that Chinese regulators are reviewing its application for its Covid vaccine, in a stock filing on Wednesday.
Sinopharm’s subsidiary the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products announced Wednesday that it had submitted an application Sunday and that regulators were reviewing it.
China already has approved two vaccines that it has been using in a mass immunization campaign. One of them is also from Sinopharm, but it was developed by its Beijing subsidiary. The other is the Sinovac vaccine.
The Wuhan shot from Sinopharm is 72.51% effective, the company said. Both shots from Sinopharm rely on inactivated viruses, a traditional technology.
CanSino’s vaccine is a one-dose shot that relies on a harmless common cold virus, called an adenovirus, to deliver the spike gene of the virus into the body. The technology is similar to both Astrazeneca and Johnson & Johnson’s vaccines, which rely on different adenoviruses.
CanSino’s vaccine is 65.28% effective, the company said Wednesday. Neither company has published its trial data in peer-reviewed scientific journals yet.
9.11pm EST 21:11
Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics will give promoting gender equality as high a priority as efforts to ensure a coronavirus-free Games, their head said on Wednesday.
Reuters: Seiko Hashimoto, admitting that the Covid epidemic had left many people worried heading towards the Games, said organisers planned to release detailed coronavirus guidelines on Thursday for the torch relay starting in late March.
Hashimoto was named president of the Tokyo 2020 Organising committee last week, replacing 83-year-old former prime minister Yoshiro Mori, who resigned after setting off a furore with sexist remarks.
Hashimoto said the organising committee had set up a gender equality promotion team and reiterated a goal to boost the proportion of women on its board to 40%.
“Even with limited time until the Games, we will work hard so people can look back and say this is a big turning point for Japan,” Hashimoto told reporters in reference to the new equality team.
She spoke after a meeting with the International Olympic Committee board, and as - in remarks unlikely to calm public concerns over the Olympics - the minister overseeing Japan’s vaccination programme told a separate event that the Games were not part of his planning.
About 1,000 Games volunteers have quit since early this month, while four torch runners resigned so far, according to the organising team.
8.51pm EST 20:51
Ikea’s UK business dived nearly £33m into the red last year after it was forced to close stores for nearly three months during the pandemic.
The world’s largest furniture retailer said UK sales fell more than 10% to £1.9bn in the year to 31 August, even though online sales increased by nearly a third.
Ikea admitted that it had struggled to meet demand for home deliveries despite turning stores into distribution centres for online orders during the high street lockdowns:
8.35pm EST 20:35
New coronavirus variant spreading in New YorkA new coronavirus variant is on the rise in New York City, researchers said on Wednesday.
The new variant, known as B.1.526, was first identified in samples collected in New York in November, and by mid-February represented about 12% of cases, researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, said on Wednesday.
Reuters: The variant was also described in research published online this week by the California Institute of Technology. Neither study has been reviewed by outside experts.
It shares some similarities with a more transmissible and intractable variant discovered in South Africa.
The Columbia researchers said an analysis of publicly available databases did not show a high prevalence of coronavirus variants recently identified in South Africa and Brazil in case samples from New York City and surrounding areas.
“Instead we found high numbers of this home-grown lineage,” Dr. Anne-Catrin Uhlemann, assistant professor in the division of infectious diseases at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, said in a statement.
The Columbia study found that B.1.526 shares some worrying characteristics with B.1.351, the variant first identified in South Africa, and P.1., which was first identified in Brazil. Several studies have suggested that those new variants are more resistant to some existing vaccines than earlier versions of the coronavirus.
The researchers said the main concern is a change in one area of the virus’ spike protein, called E484K, that is present in all three variants. The E484K mutation is believed to weaken the body’s immune response to the virus.
Studies have shown that recently launched coronavirus vaccines are still likely to neutralise the virus and protect against severe illness, even for infections with new variants. Vaccine makers are also working to develop booster shots to combat mutated versions of the virus.
8.32pm EST 20:32
Australian airline Qantas to resume international flights from October
Australian airline Qantas is preparing to resume regular international flights from late October, in line with Australia’s projected vaccine rollout.
Both Qantas and Jetstar will plan to ramp up regular services to New Zealand earlier, from July, and continues to consult with the federal government about the reopening of borders.
The airlines will offer unlimited flight changes for tickets on the reduced capacity services.
Qantas is planning to resume flights to 22 of its 25 pre-Covid international destinations including Los Angeles, London, Singapore and Johannesburg from 31 October 2021.
Qantas won’t initially resume direct flights to New York, Santiago and Osaka.
Jetstar will resume flying to all of its 13 international destinations.
The news follows several states shutting their quarantine-free border arrangements to arrivals from New Zealand following community cases this week.
8.06pm EST 20:06
Mainland China reported seven new Covid cases on 24 February, down from 12 cases a day earlier, the country’s national health authority said on Thursday.
The National Health Commission, in a statement, said all of the new cases were imported infections originating from overseas. The number of new asymptomatic cases, which China does not classify as confirmed cases, stood at nine, matching the total from a day earlier.
The total number of confirmed cases in mainland China now stands at 89,871, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,636.
7.38pm EST 19:38
Nearly half of people believe those who lost their job during the pandemic were likely to have been underperforming, a survey has found.
In findings that will raise fears over inequalities in Britain, a study of attitudes by researchers at Kings College London showed a significant minority thought a widening post-Covid income gap between white people and BAME groups would not be a problem.
“This analysis throws up the complexity of people’s view about inequalities,” said Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which will use the research for its five-year review of inequalities.
“The British public is clearly concerned about some inequalities, but also sets great store by individual responsibility.”
People care more about differences between geographical areas than races, genders and generations, found researchers in the study entitled Unequal Britain.
The findings may suggest widespread support for the “levelling up” agenda espoused by the government as the country attempts to rebound after Covid, the authors said. But it will also raise questions about the popularity of anti-inequality policies focusing on ethnic minorities and women.
Unemployment rose to 1.74 million people this week, its highest level in five years and business shutdowns are disproportionately affecting women and ethnic minorities:
7.13pm EST 19:13
Toronto cancels outdoor events through JulyCanada’s largest city Toronto is cancelling all large in-person, city-permitted outdoor events through July as the country seeks to stave off a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reports.
The city of Toronto announced Wednesday it is extending an existing cancellation of outdoor events, including the annual Pride Parade, which will be a virtual event, and 1 July Canada Day celebrations, which tend to cap off mid-summer festivities.
The announcement does not include professional sporting events, which need permission from provincial and federal governments in addition to Toronto Public Health.
“I want to thank all of these organisations for understanding the need to avoid large in-person gatherings in the coming months and thank you to those who have worked to offer virtual events to keep the spirit of these celebrations,” Mayor John Tory said in a statement.
Many Canadian provinces are gradually reopening businesses and cultural activities after a powerful second wave of the coronavirus forced authorities to issue stay-at-home orders.
7.08pm EST 19:08
More on the vaccine passports from Reuters:
Officials said the EU was working with the International Air Transport Association, which is keen to revive air travel, and with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Health Organization.
But travel with certificates also raised legal questions, officials said, because those last in line for vaccinations could argue their freedom of movement was unjustly restricted by the often months-long queues.
EU officials also point out there is no guidance yet from the WHO and EU agencies whether people who have received two shots of the Covid-19 vaccine can still carry the coronavirus and infect others, even if no longer vulnerable themselves.
It was also not clear if people could be infectious having already fought off the coronavirus themselves, for how long they remained immune and if they too should get certificates.
There is also suspicion that such schemes could provide a way in to greater monitoring of people’s movements and health statuses, a paper published in the Lancet says.
However, it added, they could facilitate safer movement and the privacy concerns are neither unique nor insurmountable.Earlier in February, Greece and Israel signed a deal to ease travel restrictions to Greece for Israelis with proof of vaccination.
7.01pm EST 19:01
EU states split over vaccine passports, to debate issueEU leaders will on Thursday debate the issue of certificates of vaccination for EU citizens who have been vaccinated against Covid.
Reuters reports that with the rollout of vaccines now gathering pace, some governments, like those of Greece and Spain, are pushing for a quick adoption of an EU-wide certificate for those already inoculated so that people can travel again.
However, other countries, such as France and Germany, appear more reluctant, as officials there say it could create de facto vaccination obligation and would be discriminatory to those who cannot or would not take a jab.
France, where anti-vaccine sentiment is particularly strong and where the government has pledged not to make them compulsory, considers the idea of vaccine passports as “premature”, a French official said today.
Updated at 8.23pm EST
6.54pm EST 18:54
Pfizer vaccine found 94% effective in landmark real-world studyThe first big real-world study of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be independently reviewed shows the shot is highly effective at preventing Covid-19, in a potentially landmark moment for countries desperate to end lockdowns and reopen economies, Reuters reports.
Up until now, most data on the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines has come under controlled conditions in clinical trials, leaving an element of uncertainty over how results would translate into the real world with its unpredictable variables.
The research in Israel– two months into one of the world’s fastest rollouts, providing a rich source of data – showed two doses of the Pfizer shot cut symptomatic Covid-19 cases by 94% across all age groups, and severe illnesses by nearly as much.The study of about 1.2 million people also showed a single shot was 57% effective in protecting against symptomatic infections after two weeks, according to the data published and peer-reviewed in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday.
The results of the study for the Clalit Research Institute were close to those in clinical trials last year which found two doses were found to be 95% effective.
The study also suggests the vaccine is effective against the variant first identified in the UK. Researchers said they could not provide a specific level of efficacy, but the variant was the dominant version of the virus in Israel at the time of the study.
The research did not shed light on how the Pfizer shot will fare against another variant, now dominant in South Africa, that has been shown to reduce the efficacy of other vaccines.
6.40pm EST 18:40
SummaryHello and welcome to today’s live coverage o f the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next few hours – as always, you can find me on Twitter @helenrsullivan.
The first big real-world study of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be independently reviewed shows the shot is highly effective at preventing Covid-19, in a potentially landmark moment for countries desperate to end lockdowns and reopen economies.
And EU leaders will on Thursday debate the issue of certificates of vaccination for EU citizens who have been vaccinated against Covid.
Here are the key developments from the last while:
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