J&J jab linked to more blood clots; double vaccine production, says UN – as it happened

This blog is closing down now. Thanks for reading and here are some of the main developments in the pandemic in the past 24 hours. You can also keep up to date with all our coverage here:

• UK prime minister Boris Johnson has come under fire for delaying until spring 2022 the newly-announced public inquiry into his government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
• UK researchers have found that the Indian variant of Covid-19 may be spreading more quickly than the Kent variant that led to the UK’s second lockdown last year and spread around the world.
• The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said it has found more cases of potentially life-threatening blood clotting among people who received the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine and sees a “plausible causal association”.
  
• Covid was preventable and need not have led to such huge loss of life, according to an WHO-commissioned report.
• Norway will not resume the use of AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine and has delayed a decision on whether to start using jabs made by Johnson & Johnson, following a press conference led by the country’s prime minister Erna Solberg. It comes after a government-appointed commission recommended that both vaccines should be excluded from Norway’s vaccination programme due to a risk of rare but harmful side-effects.
• United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres has highlighted the need to double the capacity of Covid-19 vaccine production and for fairer redistribution of the shots in the developing world.
• Mexico’s health ministry on Wednesday reported 3,090 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 267 more deaths, Reuters reports. It brings the total number of cases in the country to 2,371,483 and fatalities to 219,590.
• Vaccines using mRNA technology such as Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna appear able to “neutralise” the variant of Covid-19 behind India’s outbreak, the EU’s drug watchdog said.
• Malaysia’s ministry of health said that the country has yet to see the worst of a current surge in coronavirus cases, as it reported its highest daily death count to date. It recorded 39 deaths among the 4,765 new cases on Wednesday, pushing its total caseload past 450,000 with 1,761 fatalities – the third highest rate in south-east Asia behind Indonesia and the Philippines.

Employment for frontline healthcare workers should be “conditional” on Covid-19 vaccination, according to an article in a medical journal.

The piece published in the Journal of Medical Ethics suggests that unless staff have a valid medical reason not to get the jab, it should be a condition of employment.

Those who refuse should be redeployed, or potentially suspended, according to the ethicists, PA reports.

They argue that the ramifications of not getting vaccinated would justify the move.

The UK’s government has already launched a consultation on whether people working in care homes with older adults should be required to have a Covid-19 vaccine.

Administering one dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine followed by one of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine (or vice versa) induces a higher frequency of mild to moderate side-effects compared with standard two doses of either vaccine, initial data from a key UK trial suggests.

The Oxford-led Com-Cov study is exploring the safety and efficacy of mixed-dose schedules given that they are being considered in several countries – including the UK – to fortify vaccine rollout programmes that are dependent on unstable vaccine supplies.

The trial involves 830 participants aged 50 and over, some of whom have underlying conditions. It is testing four combinations: Oxford/AstraZeneca + Oxford/AstraZeneca; Oxford/AstraZeneca + Pfizer/BioNTech; Pfizer/BioNTech + Pfizer/BioNTech; and Pfizer/BioNTech + Oxford/AstraZeneca.

12 May 202118.30 EDT

Sarah Boseley

Delaying the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines as the UK has done can save lives, according to a modelling study from the US, which suggests other countries struggling to immunise their populations could adopt the strategy.

Second shots of both vaccines and also the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab are designed by the manufacturers to be given within three to four weeks of the first dose. The UK, in a bid to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible, opted for a 12-week delay between doses.

Immunological evidence has shown high protection from one dose – up to around 80% with both Pfizer and Moderna, which are both mRNA vaccines so made in a similar way. In the UK, there is also evidence from the immunisation programme that people given a single dose of the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines are unlikely to be hospitalised with Covid.

The US study, from scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, models the effect of delaying second doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines – the two used in the US – in populations where the vaccine roll-out is slow because of global shortages.

They found that getting a single dose to more people by delaying the second shot would save lives. In people under-65, where the vaccine efficacy is 80% and only 0.1% to 0.3% of the population is vaccinated per day, between 47 and 26 deaths per 100,000 people could be averted, they say in their paper in the BMJ. [Link will go live when the embargo lifts]

Dr Peter English, retired consultant in communicable disease control, said the study demonstrates that delaying the second dose worldwide will most quickly control the disease and prevent emerging variants from affecting every country.

Brazil recorded 76,692 further confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours along with 2,494 deaths, the country’s health ministry said on Wednesday.

Brazil has registered more than 15.3 million cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 428,034, according to ministry data, Reuters reports.

Authorities in Brazil’s most populous state said they have mobilised to try to convince the Chinese government to authorise the export of raw material to make millions of Covid-19 vaccines needed amid a sudden shortage.

The South American nation is highly dependent on a shot made by pharmaceutical company Sinovac for its immunisation efforts, and in recent weeks several Brazilian cities have either suspended or delayed vaccinations due to faltering supplies, Associated Press reports.

The factory that produces the vaccine locally, at Sao Paulo’s state-run Butantan Institute, has slowed production due to lack of raw material, and Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro and his economy minister, Paulo Guedes, made statements critical of China this month.

Sao Paulo’s governor João Doria — an adversary of Bolsonaro’s — implied their comments may have created the bottleneck.

Hours after speaking to China’s ambassador to Brazil, Doria said in a press conference that Bolsonaro and Guedes should apologise to the Asian nation for their recent comments so China can resume exports.

“He (Chinese ambassador Yang Wanming) told me he will talk to China’s ministry of foreign affairs tomorrow to renew his appeal to release the raw material that is ready at the Sinovac laboratory,” Doria said.

“That raw material is ready and available in refrigerated containers, just waiting for the authorisation of the Chinese government.”

Doria added there was risk of a halt in immunisation efforts if about 10,000 liters of raw material stuck in China — enough to bottle 18 million shots — does not arrive soon.

One of Britain’s leading imams has urged Muslims not to “drop the ball” and to continue to refrain from mixing households and hugging friends and family as Eid celebrations begin.

Qari Asim, chairman of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (Minab), told the PA news agency it will be “excruciatingly painful” to celebrate Eid without gathering in numbers and embracing loved ones, especially as the major relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions is just a few days away.

But he urged everyone to “take that one extra step”.

He said: “This Eid will be very different in the sense that we will not be able to greet each other in the traditional way of embracing each other, hugging and handshaking with each other.

“But I’m really hopeful that next Eid we will be able to be with each other and embrace each other and share a meal with our extended family and friends.

“We just have to take that one extra step to get us through this pandemic and make sure that we do not drop the ball before the restrictions are completely eased.”

Australians will have another vaccine option after the pharmaceutical company Moderna announced it has signed a deal with the federal government to provide 25m doses of its mRNA-based vaccine to the nation.

The announcement was made overnight in a press release and has not yet been formally endorsed by the federal government. It is also subject to regulatory approval by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, but Moderna says it will lodge a submission shortly.

The company says 10m doses could arrive in Australia by the end of the year and a further 15m would arrive in 2022.

US President Joe Biden has urged parents to get their children vaccinated after a government advisory panel authorised the Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for children aged 12 to 15.

“Now that vaccine is authorised for ages 12 and up, and I encourage their parents to make sure they get the shot,” Biden said.

“This is one more giant step on our fight against the pandemic.”

A US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory panel backed use of the vaccine for younger adolescents in a unanimous vote, Reuters reports.