Coronavirus live news: France to impose 10-day quarantine on Brazil arrivals; Oscars reinvented for pandemic – as it happened

Brazil recorded 67,636 additional confirmed cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 2,929 deaths from the virus, the health ministry said on Saturday.

A week ago, Brazil had logged 71,832 new infections and 2,616 fatalities from Covid-19.

The country has registered more than 13.9 million cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 371,678, according to ministry data.

Here’s a bit more detail on the news that Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga asked US drugmaker Pfizer Inc on Saturday to provide additional supplies of Covid-19 vaccine to Japan this year from Reuters:

Pfizer confirmed in an email that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla met with Suga virtually to discuss vaccine supply on the last day of Suga’s three-day visit to Washington. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is the only one approved in Japan.

Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported earlier that Suga asked Pfizer to provide more vaccine doses.

Inoculations of Japan’s sizable elderly population began on Monday, but some experts cautioned that the general population may not have access to vaccination until late summer or even winter because of constrained supplies.

Japan was among the last major economies to begin Covid-19 inoculations when it started in mid-February, after domestic trials to ensure safety.

Only 0.9% of the Japanese public received their first vaccine shot as of Friday, compared with 2.5% in South Korea, and 48% in the United Kingdom.

Japan’s top health experts have acknowledged that the Covid-19 pandemic has entered a fourth wave.

Japan has exhibited “poor performance” in containing virus transmission, along with limited testing capacity and a slow vaccination rollout, according to a commentary of health experts published in the British Medical Journal on Wednesday.

Tokyo’s Olympics chief said on Friday that Japan was committed to holding a safe Games this summer, as a surge in Covid-19 cases prompted an expansion of contagion controls and with fresh calls for the Games to again be postponed or canceled.

The US Oscars ceremony next week will have the look and feel of a movie, giving winners more time for speeches, while coronavirus masks will play a major role, producers of the show said on Saturday.

Reuters reports:

The coronavirus pandemic and a trio of new producers have led to a reinvention of the traditional show where the world’s highest movie honors are handed out before a seated theater audience of more than 4,000 A-list stars and industry executives.

Much of the April 25 ceremony will instead be held at the Art Deco Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, where a stage is being built and where presenters will be doing more than opening an envelope with the winner’s name.

“It’s not going to be like anything that’s been done before,” director Steven Soderbergh, who is producing the show with Stacey Sher and Jesse Collins, told a news conference.

Soderbergh, who directed the 2011 movie “Contagion,” said the pandemic had “opened up an opportunity to try something that hasn’t been tried.”

“We want the show to have a voice,” he added. Soderbergh said the ceremony would be shot like a movie, with presenters including Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford and Halle Berry “playing themselves, or at least a version of themselves.”

Speeches by Oscar winners were previously limited to around 45 seconds. This year, Soderbergh said, “we’re giving them space. We’ve encouraged them to tell a story, and to say something personal.”

The producers said strict testing and Covid protocols would be in place, much of them following standards developed last year to get movie and TV production running again.

They also have consulted extensively with epidemiologists who worked 10 years ago on “Contagion,” which eerily foreshadowed the devastating effects of a virus on the world and which saw a bump in rentals and streaming last year.

Asked about masks at the ceremony, Soderbergh gave what he called a deliberately cryptic reply. “Masks are going to play a very important role in the story,” he said. “That topic is very central to the narrative.”

Nominees unable to travel to Los Angeles for the ceremony will be able to take part via satellite hookups from venues around the world but there will be no Zoom appearances.

Tokyo confirmed 759 new infections on Saturday, the highest since late January and topping 500 for the fifth consecutive day, while the city of Osaka recorded 1,161 fresh infections, it’s fifth straight day of over 1,000.

The Japan Times reports:

The figure in the capital comes after stricter virus counter measures were implemented Monday for its 23 wards and six cities. Saturday’s daily number is the highest since January 30 when Tokyo reported 770 infections.

Tokyo’s daily coronavirus tally averaged 569 in the last week, up 24.1 % from the preceding week.

Among Saturday’s new cases in Tokyo, 239 people were in their 20s, 156 were in their 30s and 112 were in their 40s, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said in a statement. Those age 65 or older totaled 73 cases.

The number of severely ill Covid-19 patients under the metropolitan government’s criteria rose to 45 from 43 on Friday.

The cumulative number of cases in the capital is now 129,540.

Along with its 1,161 cases, Osaka also recorded 12 deaths as Kansai struggles in the midst of a fourth wave of infections. Neighboring Hyogo Prefecture reported a new high of 541 cases on Saturday.

[...] On Friday, the daily number of new coronavirus cases in Japan came to 4,532, surpassing the 4,000 mark for the third consecutive day.

Osaka reported 1,209 new coronavirus cases on the day, rewriting its daily record high.

Mexico recorded another 4,157 coronavirus cases and 535 new deaths on Saturday, according to health ministry data, bringing the total number of cases to 2,304,096 and 212,228 deaths.

Israel will lift its mandatory requirement to wear a mask outdoors on Sunday, but wearing masks in closed spaces will remain compulsory.

Haaretz reports:

This comes as a result of Israel’s Health Minister Yuli Edelstein’s instruction to his ministry’s director general Chezy Levy on Thursday to sign an order lifting the restriction, after the opinion of ministry professionals stated that masks can be dispensed with in open-air areas due to low coronavirus morbidity.

The statement from Edelstein’s office on Thursday stressed that Israelis would still be required to wear a mask indoors, and this message was echoed by Israel’s coronavirus czar, Professor Nachman Ash.

In an interview on Saturday, he said that “the big challenge” will be to ensure that masks are used in closed spaces. “I hope that we can count on us to keep a mask in a pocket and to use it when it is needed,” he added.

So far, according to Haaretz’s tracking of Health Ministry data, 5,341,887 Israelis have received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine, almost 57.5 percent of the population.

There are currently 2,680 active Covid patients in Israel. Of those, 201 are in serious condition, and 109 are on ventilators. Since the pandemic’s onset, 6,315 people have died of Covid in Israel.

Music lovers in Liverpool will get the chance to enjoy the uninhibited intimacy of a gig once again, after the government announced a pilot event without social distancing.

PA reports:

The live concert at Sefton Park on May 2 will not require the audience to be socially distanced, but attendees will have to provide proof of a coronavirus negative test before gaining entry, ministers have confirmed.

Culture secretary Oliver Dowden said he hoped the Events Research Programme (ERP) test event, being held in the city famous for The Beatles and other musical heavyweights, meant the wait for gigs to return would not be “too much longer”.

Operating slightly below its capacity of 7,500, researchers on site will examine the movements and behaviour of the 5,000-strong crowd at Sefton Park next month.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said the audience will not be socially distanced or required to wear face coverings in the controlled setting of the test event, meaning gig-goers will be able to enjoy the experience without physical restraints.

All attendees must have proof of a negative Covid-19 test result beforehand and will also be asked to take a test after the event, as ministers and scientists look to assess the safety of outdoor settings for masses of people not wearing face masks.

Ticket-holders will be required to take a lateral flow test, which can produce a result within 30 minutes, at a local testing centre before entry, to trial the role such facilities could play in the return of large-scale events, officials said.

The gig-goers will also have to provide contact details for NHS Test and Trace to ensure everyone can be reached in the event of a positive test.

Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga asked US drugmaker Pfizer Inc on Saturday to provide additional supplies of Covid-19 vaccine to Japan, Nikkei reported, citing Japanese officials.

Suga made the request during a telephone call with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on the last day of a three-day visit to Washington, according to the report.

Turkey recorded 62,606 new coronavirus cases in the space of 24 hours, close to its highest daily tally, and 288 deaths, data from the health ministry showed on Saturday.

Turkey currently ranks fourth globally in the number of daily cases based on a seven-day average, according to a Reuters tally.

President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday announced several new restrictions and a partial lockdown for the first two weeks of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan to curb the surge in cases.

Turkey’s overall death toll from Covid-19 stands at 35,608, from 4,212,645 confirmed cases.

The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care units in France has fallen, the health ministry said on Saturday.

Health ministry data showed that 5,877 people were in intensive care units with Covid-19 on Saturday, 37 fewer than on Friday.

France has imposed a nationwide lockdown this month to try to stem its third wave of infections.

Police in cities across Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, on Saturday refused to make random stops greenlighted by the provincial government seeking to impose a stay-at-home order amid a surge in Covid-19 cases.

Reuters reports:

Toronto, the country’s largest city, Ottawa, Hamilton, Windsor and at least 19 other municipal police forces said they would not conduct random vehicle or individual stops though they had been given the power to do so.

“The Toronto Police Service will continue to engage, educate and enforce, but we will not be doing random stops of people or cars,” the force said on Twitter.

Mayor John Tory supported the move.

Ontario, home to 38% of Canada’s population, had 4,362 new infections on Saturday after a record of 4,812 cases on Friday, and projections indicate the virus could spike to 10,000 per day in June without more strict health restrictions.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, increasingly under fire for mishandling the province’s pandemic response, on Friday gave police the authority to stop anyone driving or walking to ask them to explain their reason for leaving home, and ticket them if in breach of the rules.

Steven Del Duca, the opposition Liberal Party leader in Ontario, said Ford was imposing “martial law” and that the move was a “dangerous attack on racialized Ontarians” who would be unfairly targeted.

The expanded police powers risk causing “a rash of racial profiling and overbroad police powers, presuming everyone outside guilty until proven otherwise,” Canada’s Civil Liberties Association said.

The UK government reported a further 35 deaths within 28 days of a postive Covid-19 test as of Saturday, bringing the UK’s total death toll to 127,260.

Separate figures published by the UK’s statistics agencies show there have now been 151,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

The government also said that, as of 9am on Saturday, there had been a further 2,206 lab-confirmed cases in the UK, compared to 2,584 new cases reported a week ago. It brings the total to 4,385,938.

Italy reported 310 further deaths from Covid-19 on Saturday, as well as 15,370 new infections.

On Friday, the country had logged 429 fatalities and 15,943 new cases. The overall death toll now stands at 116,676 since the pandemic started.

On Friday, 347,279 doses of coronavirus vaccine were administered in Italy, according to the emergency commissioner.

This is the new record for a single day. In Italy, more than 10 million people have received at least one dose of a vaccine, La Repubblica reports.

Three-quarters of healthcare workers have been immunised, and among 70-79 year olds, 30.14% have received the first dose, but only 3.4% also the second shot.

4.2 million people belonging to this age group are still waiting for the first jab, the paper reports.

Overall, 16.9% of the Italian population has received at least one dose.

According to Our World in Data, Italy, as of 14 April, is slightly behind Germany, France and Spain, where more than 17% of the population has been given at least one jab.

Tunisia has announced the closure of all schools until 30 April, as well as restrictions on movement, to slow the spread of coronavirus.

A government spokeswoman said on Saturday that the situation was very serious, and that there would be a 7pm curfew for cars, Reuters reports.

A total of 20%, or 103 people, of the country’s senior residents in public retirement homes have been vaccinated.

La Presse reports:

Since the start of the national vaccination campaign on March 13, 103 seniors housed in public retirement homes have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, or about 20% of the total (500), according to the director of seniors at the ministry of women, family and seniors Imen Ben Cheikh.

In a statement to TAP, the official said that vaccination operations took place in six public institutions for the protection of the elderly in Béja, Gammarth, Le Kef, Gafsa, Sousse and Jendouba. She further indicated that 16 workers in these institutions were also vaccinated against the coronavirus out of a total of 334 employees.

According to the same source, vaccination in private institutions for the protection of the elderly started [on] Friday.

The country of about 11 million people has recorded 9,639 deaths from the virus and 281,777 infections, according to Johns Hopkins University.

I’m Jedidajah Otte and will be taking over for the next few hours. Feel free to get in touch with tips and updates, I’m on Twitter @JedySays.

Nearly 15% of health service workers in England remain unvaccinated, and the numbers coming forward for a jab have decreased sharply in the last two weeks, NHS figures have revealed, prompting concerns that many frontline staff are refusing the vaccine.

But health leaders, patients’ groups and unions have dismissed any suggestion of mandatory vaccinations after it emerged that Matt Hancock, the health secretary, had embarked on a plan before the pandemic to make flu vaccinations compulsory for NHS staff.

Read the full story here

Libya has launched its coronavirus vaccination campaign for the general population in Tripoli, with elderly people and healthcare workers given priority in the country.

AFP reports:

Those over 70 would get the AstraZeneca jab while the Russian Sputnik V vaccine would be administered to medical personnel and those aged 50-60, the National Centre for Disease Control said.

The NCDC head, Badreddine al-Najjar, told AFP the vaccines would be distributed across Libya “in the coming days”, adding that China’s Sinovac jab would also be available.

Libya has so far received 400,000 doses, including 200,000 Sputnik V shots, 57,600 AstraZeneca jabs and 150,000 from Turkey thought to be China’s Sinovac.

The AstraZeneca doses were delivered through the Covax programme for lower- and middle-income countries.

A reminder from police about the new lockdown rules in Toronto, Canada.

Zimbabwe has begun releasing about 3,000 prisoners under a presidential amnesty aimed at easing congestion to reduce the threat of Covid-19 in the country’s overcrowded jails, Associated Press reports.

About 400 prisoners were released from Chikurubi prison and other jails in the capital, Harare, on Saturday with more coming from other prisons countrywide.

Zimbabwe’s prisons have a capacity of 17,000 prisoners but held about 22,000 before the amnesty declared by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Those to be released had been convicted of non-violent crimes.

All females imprisoned for non-violent crimes and who served a third of their sentences are to be freed as will all disabled persons convicted of non-violent crimes.

Delhi has registered at least 24,000 fresh coronavirus cases in 24 hours and faces a “grim” battle against a new pandemic wave with shortages of oxygen and drugs, said the Indian capital’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal.

The city of more than 20 million is already under a strict weekend lockdown after becoming the worst-hit city in a country confronting a new surge.

India has become the world’s new Covid-19 hotspot, with more than 230,000 cases reported.

From Doug to Nelly and Eeek, we look at how mutations are affecting the battle against the virus.

In Brazil, where coronavirus deaths are running at about 3,000 per day, accounting for one-quarter of the lives lost worldwide in recent weeks, the crisis has been likened to a “raging inferno” by one WHO official. A more contagious variant of the virus has been rampaging across the country.

As cases surge, hospitals are running out of critical sedatives. As a result, there have been reports of some doctors diluting supplies and even tying patients to their beds while breathing tubes are pushed down their throats.

The slow vaccine rollout has crushed Brazilians’ pride in their own history of carrying out huge immunisation campaigns that were the envy of the developing world.

Taking cues from President Jair Bolsonaro, who has likened the virus to little more than the flu, his health ministry for months bet big on a single vaccine, ignoring other producers. When bottlenecks emerged, it was too late to get large quantities in time.

The global death toll from Covid-19 passed 3 million on Saturday, with the pandemic already having killed more people than most other viral epidemics of the 20th and 21st centuries.

But there have been notable exceptions. The post-first-world-war Spanish Flu wiped out 50 million people, according to some estimates. And over the decades Aids has killed 33 million people.

The Dubai health authority said it would allow women who are breastfeeding and those planning on conceiving to take the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine, according to the Dubai media office.

In a Twitter post, the media office said this was in line with the latest international studies and guidelines on coronavirus vaccines. It also said the DHA was cutting the time frame of vaccine eligibility for those who have previously contracted Covid-19 to 10 days from three months, provided the case was mild or asymptomatic.

Hundreds waited in grim silence at a Bangkok stadium to get free Covid-19 tests on Saturday as a spiralling infection rate gripped Thailand, on a fourth consecutive day of more than 1,000 new cases.

The capital appears to be at the centre of the kingdom’s third wave after infections were traced back to a nightlife district earlier this month.

In the past 10 days, the national infection total has jumped from 29,900 to more than 40,500 – the sharp increase probably due to a highly infectious variant of the virus originally found in Britain.

“Nearly 10,000 new cases were found within this week,” said Taweesin Visanuyothin, a spokesman for Thailand’s Covid-19 taskforce.

He added that nearly 12,000 patients were still receiving treatment in hospitals, including temporary field sites.

At the stadium testing centre, health workers in full-body PPE shepherded people through a disinfection cabin and directed them to wait in lines for the nasal swab.

Imported coronavirus variants are unlikely to set lockdown easing back to “square one” because immunity from vaccines “won’t just disappear”, according to a key figure on the UK’s immunisation committee.

Prof Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said he expected a “gradual erosion” of vaccine protection as the virus evolves but not enough to “scupper” the prime minister’s roadmap, as one leading scientist had predicted.
On Friday, Imperial College’s Prof Danny Altmann said “we should be terribly concerned” after 77 cases of a potentially vaccine-busting Covid-19 mutation first discovered in India were identified in Britain.

“They (variants of concern) are things that can most scupper our escape plan at the moment and give us a third wave. They are a worry,” Altmann told the BBC.

Finn said he thought the immunology expert had been “a bit pessimistic” with his assessment. “We’ve all expected evolution of this virus to occur from the start,” he told Times Radio.

“I also think that we know from other viruses and previous experience that the immunity that vaccines give won’t just disappear.

“It will be a gradual erosion. It won’t be back to square one. I would be really surprised if that happened.

“So, I think, possibly, that interpretation is a bit pessimistic.”

In the UK, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) was asked whether India should be placed on the “red list” of hotel quarantine countries following the discovery of a new variant there.

Prof Adam Finn said there was a need to remain cautious about international travel. “I think we’re going to go on seeing restrictions on travel for some time to come, with the pandemic raging in so many countries around the world,” he told Times Radio.

“We’ve got very big epidemics going on in India, in Brazil and in other countries that have previously been less affected. This is going to be a problem.

“We’re going to need to continue to be really quite careful to avoid moving the virus around, so I think travel won’t go back to normal yet.”

Pressed on whether Boris Johnson should still be visiting India later this month, Finn added: “I’m sure he’s going to take lots of care to avoid getting infected.

“If you mean the message of going there, well, I think he has to balance up the importance of the trip. The prime minister’s in a different position from the rest of us, of course.”

Prof Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in the UK, said immunity from Covid-19 vaccines “won’t just disappear” despite warnings that new variants could “scupper” the route out of lockdown.

He told Times Radio: “We’ve all expected evolution of this virus to occur from the start. The changes that we saw at the end of the year were not really vaccine-related, it was just the virus learning to be more infectious which, of course, gives it an advantage.

“As we see more and more immunity from the infection and vaccination occurring, then mutations in the virus that favour the virus and enable it to escape that type of immunity will inevitably occur.

“We always knew this was going to happen. I also think that we know from other viruses and previous experience that the immunity that vaccines give won’t just disappear.

“It will be a gradual erosion. It won’t be back to square one. I would be really surprised if that happened. So, I think, possibly, that interpretation is a bit pessimistic.”

The Indian coronavirus mutation could “scupper” the UK’s march to freedom, a leading scientist has warned, despite the lockdown and vaccine programme leading to cases falling to a seven-month low.

Covid-19 infections across the UK dropped to the lowest level since the autumn, according to the latest figures.

But a professor of immunology has called for Britain to be on its guard against a third wave after a possible vaccine-busting mutation was recorded in England and Scotland.

Public Health England (PHE) reported that 77 cases of the B.1.617 variant, which was first discovered in India, have been found.

Prof Danny Altmann of Imperial College London said that as a result, those arriving in the country from India should be subject to a hotel quarantine if the UK is to shut out variants that could set back the prime minister’s lockdown-easing plans.

But despite the warnings, Downing Street has insisted Boris Johnson’s trip to India later this month – his first major international visit since securing a Brexit trade deal with Brussels – will go ahead.

It comes as the group advising ministers on vaccine deployment recommended that pregnant women should be offered a Covid-19 jab at the same time as the rest of the population.

Russia on Saturday reported 9,321 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, including 2,822 in Moscow, taking the national tally to 4,693,469. The country also reported another 398 deaths, raising the official toll to 105,193.

In the UK, Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said high street shops had seen a “really positive” bounce after non-essential retail was allowed to reopen this week.

“It certainly started really well,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today.

“Although footfall was down on two years ago – because there wasn’t a lot of point measuring it against last year because we were already in lockdown in 2020 as well – it wasn’t down anything like it had been during the period of lockdown.

“From a retail point of view, people really did come out and support their local businesses and all the retailers I’ve spoken to said those first few days of the past week or so had been really positive in terms of trading.

“I think your piece highlighted the excitement of people getting back out and the excitement of the businesses in getting ready to welcome their customers back safely.”

On the growth of online shopping, Dickinson said she expected some of that to “absolutely shift back” now physical shops were open but said many retailers would continue to embrace the change, adding: “More and more people in the industry are seeing this as an opportunity rather than a threat.”

The global death toll from coronavirus is expected to reach a milestone 3m as the race to vaccinate populations continues and countries such as India grapple with a surge in infections.

The number of deaths now stands at 2.9m, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. India racked up 234,692 Covid-19 infections in the 24 hours to Saturday morning, health ministry data showed, which was the eighth record daily increase in the last nine days.

Amid a new wave of the pandemic, total cases reached nearly 14.5m, second only to the United States, which has reported more than 32m infections.

New Delhi led major cities across India into a weekend lockdown as the country confronts a fierce new coronavirus wave, with more than 230,000 fresh daily cases and families clamouring for drugs and hospital beds.

Hopes that south Asia might have beaten the pandemic have been dashed, with India recording more than 2m new cases this month alone and Bangladesh and Pakistan also imposing shutdowns.

India added another record 234,000 cases on Saturday to pass 14.5m overall, and 1,341 deaths took its pandemic total to 175,649 deaths.

The per-capita rates remain low by international comparison, but the speed at which cases are rising led the international Red Cross to call the south Asian surge “truly frightening”.

• This post was amended on 18 April 2021 to remove an incorrect reference to India being the world’s most populous country.

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