Coronavirus latest news: Michel Barnier calls for vaccine war ceasefire as Pfizer criticises EU

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Gareth Davies
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A vaccine distribution centre in Romania. The rollout in the EU has been hit by production delays - AP
A vaccine distribution centre in Romania. The rollout in the EU has been hit by production delays - AP
Coronavirus Article Bar with counter ..
Coronavirus Article Bar with counter ..

Michel Barnier has given his farewell speech as the European Union's (EU) Brexit negotiator where he called for a ceasefire in the vaccine war.

On Wednesday night he spoke at the Churchill Europe Symposium - a nod to where the former British Prime Minister called for a United States of Europe in 1946 - and urged the UK and EU to comes to terms in its vaccine battle in his goodbye to bloc institutions.

He said: "It is true that the UK has a quicker vaccination rate compared to the EU. But the fight against COVID 19 is more than speed of vaccination, important as that is...We will all find strong and weaker points in how we managed this. But there is no place, in such a serious situation, for polemics and competition. There are so many more reasons to cooperate, in the short and the long term."

Meanwhile, Pfizer has accused the European Union of hampering its Covid vaccine production. The US drugmaker, which supplies Britain and more than 70 other countries with coronavirus jabs, said new EU rules about the free movement of goods across borders are damaging its ability to export the vaccine.

​​Follow the latest updates below.

08:06 AM

Drakeford confident Wales will stick to roadmap dates

First Minister Mark Drakeford said he is confident Wales will stick to the reopening dates on the new road map out of lockdown due to the success of its vaccination programme and falling coronavirus case rates.

He told Sky News Breakfast: "The level of coronavirus in Wales is the lowest in the United Kingdom and the rates of vaccination are the highest. All that means that the virus is in a relatively benign position.

"We have to sustain that, we have to go on working hard to make sure that we don't lose the ground that we've gained.

"Provided we can do that, then there are new dates from here until the month of May where freedoms can be restored, businesses can reopen and we can take advantage of the time of year in which outdoor activities in particular are easier to resume."

07:51 AM

Staycations over trips abroad, urges Welsh First Minister

First Minister Mark Drakeford said he would encourage people in Wales to holiday domestically over the summer in place of a trip abroad.

Asked what he would say to people wanting a foreign break, he told Good Morning Britain: "I'd say that this is the year to have your holiday in Wales. There are so many fantastic opportunities here.

"If ever there was a year to enjoy what we have domestically, and to find those spots in Wales that you haven't visited before, this is the year to do it."

Mr Drakeford said the Welsh Government would not seek to prevent people from travelling internationally if rules allow later in the year.

"It's not realistic to try to prevent people and we won't make that attempt. What my advice to people in Wales would be this year, stay at home, enjoy what we have here. Don't put yourselves and other people at risk."

07:27 AM

Taking jab like going to work - 'we might die in a car accident'

Asked about the potential risk for blood clots with the AstraZeneca vaccine, Prof Finn said: "I think one thing we can say at this moment is that the benefits (of the vaccine) outweigh the risk.

"As things stand, the risks of Covid, and of blood clots indeed caused by Covid, are massively greater than the risks that may conceivably exist as a result of receiving this vaccine.

"We are in a state of uncertainty at this point about all of this. We don't know for sure about the causal relationship. And we don't really know, critically, what the mechanism is and so what implication that might have even for other vaccines."

Many vaccines currently in use "do have very rare, unexpected serious side effects but we still use them because the balance of risk and benefit is greatly in favour of using them," he added.

"It could turn out that that's the case for either one or even more than one of the vaccines we've developed against Covid. So, it is always in the end a matter of balancing risk and benefit.

"Just as we all get up in the morning and go to work and take a mortal risk ... we find that acceptable because we might die in a car accident or be knocked down by a bus. We have to get used to the idea that using vaccines and drugs and medicines is not without risk, but they're very, very small risks, and the risks of not using them is obviously much greater."

07:25 AM

Children might not get jabs because it's rare they get ill

Professor Adam Finn said whether to vaccinate children at all given they do not get seriously ill with coronavirus was "a really important question".

He added: "One would not really be comfortable with immunising children entirely for the benefit of others and not for children.

"I think if it does look as though it's necessary, that will be driven by the observation that the virus is still circulating and there's jeopardy for children in terms of disruption to their education.

"I think that probably squares the circle if it does prove necessary.

"Of course there are children who do get sick when they experience Covid, but very small numbers, both from the sort of classic respiratory disease but also a few get this inflammatory syndrome that you may remember hearing about last year, we still see the occasional case coming in of that,

"There are children that get sick as well, but I think the main reason for doing it would be to try and keep things functioning normally across society including schools."

07:17 AM

Pfizer hits out at EU

Pfizer has accused the European Union of hampering its Covid vaccine production. The US drugmaker, which supplies Britain and more than 70 other countries with coronavirus jabs, said new EU rules about the free movement of goods across borders are damaging its ability to export the vaccine.

The rules oblige manufacturers to seek Brussels' approval before exporting every parcel of jabs, which has caused "a significant administrative burden and some uncertainty", said Danny Hendrikse, the pharmaceutical giant's vice-president of global supply.

“Ultimately what we would like our colleagues to do is to focus on making and distributing the vaccine,” he said.

07:02 AM

Drakeford: 'May 17 international travel goal over-optimistic'

Wales First Minister Mark Drakeford said he hopes Boris Johnson will push back the potential May 17 date for the UK resuming international travel by the time he addresses the nation next week.

He told Good Morning Britain: "I've long argued that it is over-optimistic, that it doesn't reflect the risk of reimporting coronavirus from other parts of the world where there are new variants in circulation."

Mr Drakeford said the newest lockdown in France in response to rising cases of Covid-19 there was evidence of "how close to this country some of those risks are currently being experienced".

"When the Prime Minister speaks next week I hope that he will say that date is having to be pushed back further into the future in order to go on protecting the United Kingdom against the developments we see elsewhere in the world", he said.

06:59 AM

'No problems so far' on teenagers' vaccine trial

Professor Adam Finn, from the University of Bristol and a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said there had been "no problems so far" in the trial on teenagers using the AstraZeneca vaccine.

He said permission was expected to be granted shortly to recruit younger children from the age of five.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Also, (we are) looking forward to studies in teenagers and also younger children with the Janssen vaccine, which we've been hearing about as another vaccine coming through for use, so quite a lot going on now in children."

He said decisions on vaccinating children "will come later in the summer", adding: "I think what we'll be seeing really is the impact of the vaccine programme so far as we move down through the adult population, and forming an opinion as to whether it's going to be necessary to immunise children as well in order to keep the virus under control.

"The important aspect of that for children is that we desperately want to keep schools open into the next academic year and avoid any further disruption to education.

"I think this would benefit children if it turns out to be necessary, but clearly, we don't want to do this unless it is necessary, because it would be an additional difficulty, costs and so on."

06:49 AM

Test and Trace 'not a perfect system', concedes minister

Skills minister Gillian Keegan has said that NHS Test and Trace was "not a perfect system" as it relied on people "doing the right thing".

She told Sky News: "9.6 million people have actually been traced. We're doing millions and millions of tests a day, we're collecting a lot of data from those tests as well, 6.4 million people have been contact-traced as well.

"Is the system perfect? No, it's not, because it relies, obviously, on people doing the right thing.

"It relies on people getting a test and it relies on people obviously isolating if they are positive.

"So, it's not a perfect system, but it's certainly a very effective system."

06:34 AM

Latest from the rest of the world

  1. Brazil has detected a new COVID-19 variant that is similar to the one first seen in South Africa, the head of Sao Paulo's Butantan institute said.

  2. South Korea said it will issue so-called COVID-19 vaccine passports to immunized citizens.

  3. India opened up its coronavirus inoculation programme to people above 45 as infections surge, in a move that will delay vaccine exports from the world's biggest vaccine maker.

  4. Egypt received 854,400 doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine as part of the global COVAX agreement, the health ministry said.

  5. Israel plans to administer the Pfizer vaccine to adolescents upon FDA approval, the health minister said.

06:29 AM

Latest from Europe

  1. All health workers in Italy must have coronavirus jabs, the government said, in a potentially controversial move aimed at protecting vulnerable patients and pushing back against 'anti-vax' sentiment.

  2. President Emmanuel Macron ordered France into its third national lockdown and said schools would close for three weeks as he sought to push back a third wave of Covid-19 infections.

  3. Belgian hospitals have been ordered to reserve 60 per cent of their intensive care beds for Covid-19 patients as a third wave of infections takes hold, doctors said.

  4. European Union states are expected to receive 107 million doses of vaccines by the end of March, hitting a revised-down target but far below initial plans.

06:11 AM

Today's front page

Here is your Daily Telegraph on Thursday, Apr 1.

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dt

04:48 AM

Few poeple self-isolate woth Covid symptoms, survey finds

Fewer than one in five people request a Covid-19 test if they have symptoms, while adherence to self-isolation is low, according to a large study examining the Test and Trace system.

Experts, including from the Public Health England (PHE) behavioural science team at Porton Down in Wiltshire, found that only half of people could identify the main coronavirus symptoms, which include a cough, high temperature and loss of taste or smell.

Just 18% of those with symptoms said they had requested a test, while only 43% with symptoms in the previous seven days adhered to full self-isolation.

The findings, published in The BMJ, are based on 74,697 responses to online surveys from 53,880 people aged 16 or older living in the UK.

In total, 37 survey waves were carried out from March 2 last year to January 27 this year, with about 2,000 participants in each wave.

The results showed that only 52% of people could identify the main symptoms of Covid-19, and this did not really improve as time went on.

Across all waves, 43% of people adhered to rules around self-isolation, though this improved in January to 52%.

02:52 AM

Mass testing in schools costs £120,000 for every positive case

Mass testing in schools is costing up to £120,000 to find just one positive case, experts claimed as they called for the programme to be halted.

Between March 11 and March 17, data from secondary schools showed that just 1,805 positive cases were found from 3.8 million tests.

Under current false positive rates, around 1,160 of those positives would be wrong, meaning only 645 would be correct – approximately one in 6,000.

"At £20 a test, that is £120,000 per case found," said Prof Jon Deeks, head of the biostatistics, evidence synthesis and test evaluation research group at the University of Birmingham.

"There is obviously a lot of uncertainty in this, and I don't think this includes all costs, and obviously they will have varied. But even if it is only £10 per test, we are talking £60,000, which is an inefficient cost to detect a single case."

Read more: Experts call for mass testing in schools to be halted

Testing in schools
Testing in schools

02:33 AM

15m Johnson & Johnson vaccines wasted after factory error

About 15 million doses of the single-shot coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson were ruined in a factory error in the United States, The New York Times reported – a blow to the company's efforts to quickly boost production.

The pharmaceutical giant told AFP it had identified a batch of doses at a plant in Baltimore run by Emergent BioSolutions "that did not meet quality standards" but did not confirm the specific number affected. The company also said the batch "was never advanced to the filling and finishing stages of our manufacturing process".

"Quality and safety continue to be our top priority," it said.

The Food and Drug Administration told AFP it was "aware of the situation" but declined to comment further.

Read more: 15m doses of Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine wasted after factory error

02:00 AM

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