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Over-56s invited for Covid vaccine jabs as July target date on track

A nurse draws up a vaccine as members of the public receive their Covid-19 vaccinations at Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire - Getty
A nurse draws up a vaccine as members of the public receive their Covid-19 vaccinations at Lichfield Cathedral, Staffordshire - Getty

People aged between 56 and 59 are being invited to book Covid-19 vaccinations this week, NHS England said.

Hundreds of thousands of letters for the age group began landing on doorsteps on Saturday, and the latest round of invitations comes after eight in 10 people aged 65-69 took up the offer of a jab, it added.

More than 18 million people across England - more than one-third of the adult population - have already received a vaccine.

Across the whole of the UK, more than a million people have received both doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, while almost 21.4 million people have had one dose.


05:36 PM

Sunday summary

That's all for today. Thanks for joining us.

  • Boris Johnson has defended the decision to offer NHS staff a below-inflation 1% pay rise, saying the government has tried to "give them as much as we can" at a time when the pandemic has hit public finances.

  • Jonathan Ashworth, Labour's shadow health secretary, has said however that it is "absolutely disgusting" that the government is raising taxes on working families and effectively "cutting NHS pay" with a 1% pay rise.

  • The Education Secretary has confirmed that a change to the summer holidays and longer school days were part of proposals that were being examined for helping pupils to catch up on lost learning during the pandemic.

  • The emergence of new variants of the coronavirus will not derail the plan to start easing the nationwide lockdown in England over the coming weeks, Public Health England (PHE) official Susan Hopkins.

  • Austrian authorities have suspended inoculations with a batch of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine as a precaution while investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after the shots.

  • The remote Pacific territory of New Caledonia, one of the few places on the planet to have avoided Covid-19, is to go into strict lockdown after detecting nine cases.

  • Meanwhile, Norway will likely need stronger restrictions to combat the latest resurgence in coronavirus infections, officials have said.

  • Ethiopia has received its first 2.2 million doses of coronavirus vaccine and officials said the first jabs would be administered in the coming days.


05:08 PM

Fauci upbeat on Covid-19 vaccinations for US teens by autumn

High school students in the United States should be able to receive Covid-19 vaccinations by the autumn, with younger students likely to be cleared for vaccinations in early 2022, top US infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.

Fauci said he expected the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue relaxed guidelines for people who have already been vaccinated within "the next couple of days," but urged continued vigilance on mitigation measures for the over 80% of Americans still awaiting shots.

"We're going in the right direction. We just need to hang in there a bit longer," Fauci told CBS. "We want to get those death levels of the virus very, very low, and then we'll have a much, much easier time to safely pull back" on mitigation measures.

The United States is now vaccinating on average 2.1 million people a day.

"We project that high school students will very likely be able to be vaccinated by the fall term, maybe not the very first day, but certainly in the early part of the fall," he said.

He said elementary school children would likely be ready to receive vaccinations by the first quarter of next year, after studies on safety are finished, he said.


04:52 PM

Glitch in UK data shows the country reported zero Covid deaths on Sunday

The total number of coronavirus deaths reported in the UK on Sunday is not yet available due to issues processing the data for England.

The government's coronavirus dashboard is currently displaying the number of deaths as zero, which is not accurate.


04:39 PM

Everything we know about the risk of long Covid in kids

A collection of vague symptoms, a new syndrome and an uncertain case definition – long Covid is not easy to diagnose.

The condition is thought to affect around 10 per cent of adults who have had a Covid infection and it is increasingly being recognised among children.

However, it remains unclear how prevalent it is among younger age groups, a question which is becoming more pressing as schools prepare to fully re-open on March 8.

Read more here.


04:10 PM

Nation should prepare for a hard winter: PHE

The nation should prepare itself for a "hard winter" with the threat of Covid-19 and a flu surge still a possibility, a Public Health England official has said.

The NHS will have to be ready for a potential rise in respiratory viruses as people wait to discover if there is a strong level of immunity in the population, according to Dr Susan Hopkins, who advises the Government on its Covid policy.

Dr Hopkins, who is Covid-19 strategic response director to Public Health England, told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "I think we have to prepare for a hard winter, not only with coronavirus but we've had a year of almost no respiratory viruses of any other type, and that means potentially the population immunity to that is less, and so we could see surges in flu.

"We could surges in other respiratory viruses and other respiratory pathogens."


03:24 PM

Scotland reports 390 cases and zero deaths

Scotland has recorded its second lowest number of infections this year, with 390 new confirmed cases.

On Monday, 386 cases were reported, the lowest total since November.

The nation has also reported zero deaths, although days without any reported deaths have been relatively common at the weekends. It means the total number of deaths by the daily reported measure still stands at 7,421.

Meanwhile, NHS England said 90 more people have died within 28 days of a positive test.

In Wales, 18 more deaths were reported and 152 new confirmed cases - bringing the average infection rate over seven days to its lowest point since 18 September.

A further three people have died in Northern Ireland, while 138 people have tested positive in the last 24 hours.


03:19 PM

Covid-19 travel insurance becoming a vacation staple

Covid-19 insurance policies are increasingly joining passports and sunscreen as vacation staples, creating opportunities for insurers as more countries require mandatory coverage in case visitors fall ill from the coronavirus.

Airline bookings are on the rise in some regions, driving cautious hopes of a revival in summer traffic, but also raising fears among tourist destinations of getting hit with bills should vacationers become stranded by the virus.

More than a dozen countries from Aruba to Thailand require Covid-19 coverage for visitors, with Jordan the latest to consider such protections, organizers of an emergency services plan told Reuters.

The market for all types of Covid-19 travel coverage is estimated to be between $30 billion to $40 billion a year, according to travel insurance consultant Robyn Ingle, with companies like AXA and AIG underwriting protection.

But a surge in demand for Covid-19 coverage also means insurers could be on the hook for big payouts should another wave of infections lead to large numbers of cancellations or tourists getting sick.


03:07 PM

Maldives receives first around of vaccines from Covax

The Maldives are celebrating their first round of vaccines to be delivered by Covax


02:43 PM

1% pay rise for NHS staff is all we can manage, says Boris Johnson


01:33 PM

German supermarkets draw criticism over self-test sales

The German government has come in for harsh criticism from state leaders over the fact that supermarkets have started selling home testing kits while free tests promised by Berlin have still not arrived.

“I'm not going to hide the fact that I am very annoyed that the federal government has allowed Aldi and Co. to sell self-tests while we won't receive our first orders until mid-March,” said Manuela Schwesig, state leader in Mecklenburg.

The German health ministry had promised that self-tests would be available for free at pharmacies across the country by March 1st. But a delayed and restricted rollout means that pharmacies will start providing the tests next week.

Confusion has since reigned over whether the states or the federal government were supposed to put buy the tests.

Angela Merkel’s right-hand man at the Chancellery, Helge Braun, has claimed that responsibility lay with the federal states. “We never agreed that the federal government would order the tests,” he told Bild newspaper.

For months, the pandemic response in Germany has been marked by quarrelling between federal and state governments, with arguments over vaccine deliveries also marked by finger-pointing between Berlin and the provinces.

Meanwhile, Aldi and Lidl have both started selling test kits at the check-out counter. Demand for the kits was so high on the first day of sales on Saturday that stores quickly sold out.

The government’s delayed test strategy risks slowing school openings, which were reliant on children and teachers having access to test facilities.

Jörg Luyken reports.


12:22 PM

Reopening England's schools is step towards normality, PM says

The reopening of England's schools to all pupils on Monday will mark the first step back towards normality and is only possible because of the efforts of the public to bring Covid-19 infection rates down, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.

Johnson has announced a roadmap for lifting lockdown measures that sees schools open first, followed in later stages by the gradual easing of restrictions on mixing with other people and the reopening of non-essential shops and other venues.

In the final stage, which will take place no earlier than June 21, the government hopes to remove all remaining legal limits on contact with others.

"The reopening of schools marks a truly national effort to beat this virus," Johnson said.

"It is because of the determination of every person in this country that we can start moving closer to a sense of normality – and it is right that getting our young people back into the classroom is the first step."


11:59 AM

Austria suspends AstraZeneca vaccine batch after death

Austrian authorities have suspended inoculations with a batch of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine as a precaution while investigating the death of one person and the illness of another after the shots, a health agency said on Sunday.

"The Federal Office for Safety in Health Care (BASG) has received two reports in a temporal connection with a vaccination from the same batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the district clinic of Zwettl" in Lower Austria province, it said.

One 49-year-old woman died as a result of severe coagulation disorders, while a 35-year-old woman developed a pulmonary embolism and is recovering, it said. A pulmonary embolism is a blockage in the pulmonary artery, which supplies the blood to the lungs, caused by a dislodged blood clot.

"Currently there is no evidence of a causal relationship with the vaccination," BASG said.

Swiss newspaper Niederoesterreichische Nachrichten as well as broadcaster ORF and the APA news agency reported that the women were both nurses who worked at the Zwettl clinic.

BASG said blood clotting was not among the known side effects of the vaccine. It was pursuing its investigation vigorously to completely rule out any possible link.

"As a precautionary measure, the remaining stocks of the affected vaccine batch are no longer being issued or vaccinated," it added.

AstraZeneca had no immediate comment when contacted by Reuters.


11:20 AM

Israel re-opens restaurants

Israel took another step towards post-pandemic normalcy on Sunday, opening restaurants, bars and cafes to vaccinated "green pass" holders, with about 40 percent of the population fully inoculated against the coronavirus.

"We are coming to life," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, as he cut into a pastry at a Jerusalem cafe, according to a video posted on Facebook.

Israel, which launched its vaccination campaign in December, has given the recommended two jabs of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to more than 3.7 million of its roughly nine million people.

The country launched its green pass programme last month, allowing controlled numbers of people with proof of full vaccination - or those who had recovered from Covid-19 - to enter gyms, pools and other facilities.

Nearly five million citizens have received their first shot.


11:01 AM

Dutch dance lovers offered lockdown relief at test event

Dance music lovers in Amsterdam were offered a short relief from lockdown on Saturday, as they were treated to their first live show in over a year as part of a research project.

1,300 people were allowed at a test event in Amsterdam’s biggest music hall, the Ziggo Dome, which in normal times has a capacity of up to 17,000, Reuters reports.

While dancing to songs, the fans were followed in all their movements and contacts through a tag they were made to wear, in an effort to see how events might safely be opened up for the public again.


10:49 AM

Virus reaches previously Covid-free New Caledonia

The remote Pacific territory of New Caledonia, one of the few places on the planet to have avoided Covid-19, is to go into strict lockdown after detecting nine cases, local officials said Sunday.

The outbreak on the French archipelago was detected after a school headteacher fell ill on the Wallis and Futuna islands - another French territory in the Pacific - leading authorities to screen for cases.

"According to the first indications, the patient developed symptoms in mid-February and could have been infectious in Wallis and Futuna from the end of January," the head of the local government in New Caledonia, Thierry Santa, told reporters.

Travel between the two French territories had previously been unrestricted, while anyone arriving from elsewhere had to undergo a strict 14-day quarantine in a hotel.

Officials announced a two-week lockdown for New Caledonia starting from Monday evening, to "break the transmission of the virus while there is still time".


10:45 AM

Williamson asked if he is the man for the job

Andrew Marr has asked Gavin Williamson if he is the man for the job following a series of 'failings', including the exam fiasco and schools opening for just one day in January.

"We’ve been dealing with a global pandemic," Mr Williamson responded, adding that "at every stage my focus has been doing what is right for children".

He said he will "never make an apology for wanting to keep our schools open" and says his "passion for education" is what drives him.


10:43 AM

Government focus on recovering from pandemic, not increasing nurses pay, says Education Secretary


10:42 AM

School mask wearing doesn't need to be compulsory: Williamson

The Education Secretary has told the Andrew Marr Show that he doesn't believe the recommendation for students to wear masks in class as well as in communal areas needs to be compulsory, saying most teenagers recognise the importance of protecting others and their whole community.

Gavin Williamson said mask wearing in communal areas was only "strongly advised" in the autumn and it worked "incredibly well"

"We hope this is a temporary measure," he added.


10:30 AM

School reopening 'intended to be irreversible'

Gavin Williamson said schools reopening marked the first stage of opening up society as part of lockdown easing.

"This is our first step, our real first step in terms of moving out of national lockdown and it is our schools that are leading the way," the Education Secretary told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

Mr Williamson continued: "We are very much factoring in as part of the road map that actually schools will be staying open.

"That is why we are taking a cautious approach because we intend for it to be an irreversible approach and that schools will continue to remain open."

He gave a guarantee that schools would return again after the Easter holidays.


10:25 AM

Williamson 'incredibly grateful' for NHS

Back to the Andrew Marr Show, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said he was "incredibly grateful" for the world of NHS staff after being invited to comment on the pay rise row.

Mr Williamson said the government has set out "one of the largest investment proposals for the NHS in a generation" but faces an "incredibly challenging economic situation".

One million staff will still benefit from a larger rise than 1%, he said, "on the back of some record increases" in previous years.

Mr Marr, however, pointed out that these record increases actually amounted to very little money.


10:22 AM

Ethiopia gears up for Covid vaccine drive as first doses arrive

Ethiopia has received its first 2.2 million doses of coronavirus vaccine and officials said the first jabs would be administered in the coming days.

The doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, were allocated under the UN-led Covax initiative which is working to facilitate vaccine access for poorer countries.

"After a long wait of uncertainty, hope has become a reality," health minister Dr Lia Tadesse said at a ceremony Sunday morning at the airport in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

She hailed Covax as "an unprecedented global partnership," adding: "The more people get vaccinated, the faster we're going to beat this pandemic."

Ethiopia has so far reported 165,029 cases of Covid-19, the fifth-highest total in Africa and the highest in East Africa.

Over the past month, cases have risen by 12 percent on average each week, and deaths have risen by 37 percent on average each week, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).


10:11 AM

Coronavirus variants should not derail English lockdown easing: PHE

The emergence of new variants of the coronavirus should not derail a plan to start easing a nationwide lockdown in England over the coming weeks, Public Health England (PHE) official Susan Hopkins said on Sunday.

"I think it won't change it for the next three to five weeks, that would be highly unlikely," Dr Hopkins, PHE’s strategic response director, told the BBC's Andrew Marr show.

"We will need to watch it carefully as new strains come into the country from around the world and we will need to be very ready for autumn."


10:01 AM

No need to pause school reopening if cases rise: PHE

Dr Susan Hopkins of Public Health England has told the Andrew Marr Show that she does not believe that the reopening of schools should be put on hold if it turns out that cases rise.

There will be time to study the data before the Easter holidays, she said, adding that the country will be able to "accept some cases in the community" as the effect of vaccination takes hold as hospitalisations and deaths are expected to remain much lower now that the most vulnerable groups have some protection.

"Vaccination is our way out of where we are now", Dr Hopkins told Andrew Marr, because it reduces the impact of the virus.


09:50 AM

'Disappointing' teachers not prioritised for jab

Labour's shadow health secretary also said it was "disappointing" that teachers were not given priority for vaccination, but says schools still need to reopen.

"Our concern is children will be sent home again because staff will be off sick," Jonathan Ashworth said.

He told Andrew Marr that schools need to have better ventilation and more space for social distancing - and the government should have created more "Nightingale classrooms" to provide more space.

If schools reopening puts pressure on the R rate, then reopening sectors such as hospitality may have to be delayed, he added.

"If you’re going to ask me what’s my priority? It’s children in school, not pubs and restaurants opening," he says. But businesses which have to stay closed must be compensated, he says.


09:48 AM

NHS staff being made to pay for Covid debt, says Ashworth

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour's shadow health secretary, has said it is "absolutely disgusting" that the government is raising taxes on working families and effectively "cutting NHS pay" with a 1% pay rise.

Inflation is under 1% but the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that it will rise to 1.5% this year, which would make the 1% increase a real-terms cut.

Mr Ashworth told Andrew Marr that the chancellor promised to cover all Covid costs but is now "asking NHS staff to take a pay cut to pay for Covid pressures".


09:35 AM

Covid recovery for schools is 'like 1944'

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has compared the recovery from the coronavirus crisis in schools to the education system in the aftermath of World War II.

He tells Sky News' Sophy Ridge on Sunday that it is "one of those moments like the 1944 Education Act that came out of the Second World War".


09:34 AM

Longer school days and changes to summer holidays under review

The Education Secretary confirmed that a change to the summer holidays and longer school days were part of proposals that were being examined for helping pupils to catch up on lost learning during the pandemic.

Gavin Williamson told Sky News' Sophy Ridge On Sunday: "There is a whole range of different proposals that we are looking at, whether it is a five-term year, whether it is lengthening the school day.

"But also measures such as enhancing the support we give to teachers, supporting them in their professional development, making sure they can be the very best of themselves."

He said Sir Kevan Collins, the Government's education recovery commissioner, would be looking at what measures to introduce over the next 18 months.


09:28 AM

'Majority of children happy to go back to school'

Amanda Spielman, Ofsted chief inspector, has said children are "adaptable and flexible" around things like mask-wearing and testing in schools, and "can live with a little bit of inconvenience for a few weeks".

She told Sophy Ridge on Sky News: "I think the overwhelming thing we're seeing is the vast majority of parents, the vast majority of children and the vast majority of teachers are really happy to be going back to school.

"I really hope the whole paraphernalia of masks and testing is only necessary for a short time ... I love the idea of children being able to come back in summer term able to see everybody fully."

She said current Ofsted monitoring visits have shown "the extraordinary efforts that schools have been putting into remote education".

She added: "It's been a slog, it's been a real slog. Children on the receiving end are bored, lonely, miserable, anxious and really, really want the normal experience again."


08:45 AM

China to deliver vaccines to overseas citizens

Senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi said on Sunday that China has plans to set up Covid vaccination stations to administer vaccines to Chinese citizens overseas.

Speaking during his annual news conference, he said the program would be made available in countries where conditions permitted, according to Reuters.


07:57 AM

Have your kids got Monday-itis after lockdown?

Back to school

Months of closures and anxiety mean families must tread carefully when sending children back to the classroom.

Get set for the reopening of schools, with Sarah Rodrigues explaining how families are feeling today...

Twas the night before March 8, and all through the house… parents were frantically ironing shirts, hunting for lunch boxes (fact: lids are to kitchen cupboards what socks are to washing machines) and cursing the fact they’d just bought new blazers last March, right before schools shut for months on end and children grew about a foot and a half.

Meanwhile, children, having become accustomed to only prising their eyes open minutes before online registration, and taking advantage of muted mics to wander out of class for snacks and unfeasibly lengthy toilet breaks, were in several shades of meltdown.

READ MORE: Have your kids got Monday-itis? Here's how to help them beat the back-to-school blues


07:48 AM

Smacking on the rise as violence soars during lockdown

Britain has taken a "terrible backwards step” in its treatment of children as cases of smacking and physical abuse soar in lockdown, the NSPCC chief executive has warned.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Telegraph, Sir Peter Wanless said the rise of physical violence against children during the pandemic had left him feeling “disturbed”.

He warns families being locked up at home, which has seen children being educated by parents, has had a "pressure cooker" effect.

READ MORE: Smacking on rise as violence against children soars in lockdown, NSPCC chief warns


07:17 AM

Case numbers reach nearly three million in Turkey

Turkish health ministry statistics show a significant increase in coronavirus cases in Turkey's largest cities and alarming rates in Black Sea provinces.

A weekly provincial map of infections shared by Health Minister Fahrettin Koca showed more than 111 positive cases identified in Istanbul per 100,000 people in the past week.

Istanbul has been categorised as a "high risk" city for Covid-19.

Restaurants and cafes have re-opened and weekend lockdowns are reduced to only Sundays except for "very high-risk" cities. Istanbul residents filled the streets and restaurants, many ignoring mask and social distancing rules.

Northeastern provinces along the Black Sea have been categorised as "very high-risk", where restrictions continue.

The seven-day average of cases across the country rose back above 10,000 this week, bringing the total number of cases to more than 2.7 million and the confirmed death toll to 28,901.


07:12 AM

Restrictions cause outrage in Sweden

Protesters gather to protest coronavirus restrictions in Stockholm, Sweden - Atila Altuntas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Police have dispersed hundreds of people who had gathered in central Stockholm to protest coronavirus restrictions set by the Swedish government.

Swedish authorities said Saturday's demonstration was illegal because it was held without permission.

Police said on their website that they cut short the gathering when the number of participants exceeded what is currently allowed at public gatherings under Sweden's pandemic laws.

Video footage aired on Swedish media showed a sizeable group of people without masks gathered in Medborgarplatsen square in Stockholm's city centre, not far from the Old Town.


07:07 AM

Germany helps Covid patients from Slovakia

Coronavirus patients from hard-hit Slovakia are arriving in Germany for treatment.

The state government of North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany said the first two patients were expected to arrive at Dortmund airport on Saturday on board a chartered plane. They would be treated at a hospital in the city.

More patients may follow in coming days. German news agency dpa reported that North Rhine-Westphalia said it had offered to take in a total of 10 patients from Slovakia.

Patients from France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium have previously gone to Germany for treatment during the pandemic.

The number of people in Germany needing intensive care has declined significantly in the past two months.


06:07 AM

Concern over school lateral flow tests

Children may be wrongly kept off school because there is a risk that the "majority" of positive cases detected by the Government's lateral flow tests "could be false positives", experts have warned.

Ministers have distributed 57 million of the tests to schools in England as Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday declared the reopening of classrooms a "truly national effort to beat this virus".

However Sheila Bird, a member of the Royal Statistical Society that produced a new paper on the accuracy of lateral flow tests, said on Saturday every positive quick-result test of a school pupil should be double checked with a PCR test to ensure it was accurate.

A false positive occurs when someone who doesn't have Covid-19 is wrongly told by the test they have the virus.

Read more: Concern quick-result tests on pupils will give too many false positives


05:34 AM

Auckland emerges from lockdown

Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, has emerged from a strict weeklong lockdown imposed after a community cluster of the more contagious British coronavirus variant.

There were no new local Covid-19 cases recorded today, health officials said, marking a full week of no community transmissions across the country.

Footage on TVNZ, New Zealand's state-owned television network, showed people lining up at coffee shops on Sunday morning with many saying they were feeling relieved.

Auckland, a city of nearly two million, will continue to have limits on public gathering and masks are obligatory on public transport. Restrictions might be further eased on Friday.


03:41 AM

Sunday's top stories

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