Coronavirus - 2 February

Headlines

• Brazil has begun its vaccination programme after it approved the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and China’s Sinovac.

• Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine gives around 92% protection, late-stage trial results published in The Lancet reveal.

• In France, ski resorts are to stay shut through February.

• From next Monday, Denmark will start reopening schools for the youngest children up to Year 4.

• Austria will lift its lockdown on 8 February, but under strict conditions that require the wearing of FFP2 masks in shops. Museums, hairdressers and zoos will be allowed to reopen, as well as schools in some areas.

• Chinese police arrested more than 80 people and confiscated over 3,000 fake doses of Covid-19 vaccine.

• The US CDC found only 5.4% of coronavirus vaccine recipients were black, in its first analysis of how vaccines are being distributed among different demographics.

• The mortality rate of those hospitalised has fallen from 60% in March 2020 to 36% in October, a study of global trends shows.

• Dubai is to start vaccinating people with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the state media office has announced.

• Australia’s three-test cricket tour of South Africa has been postponed.

• China’s Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products said on Tuesday it had completed a facility designed to produce 400m doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine per year, doubling a capacity target promised in 2020.

• Teachers in Turkey will get vaccinations in February, as the country prepares for a nationwide reopening of schools as of 1 March.

• There were 5,460 deaths caused by alcohol between January and September, up 16% on the same months in 2019.

• Japan’s government has extended its state of emergency for another month.

• Poland will not be giving the AstraZeneca vaccine to elderly people in the country, the prime minister’s top aide has announced.

• The San Fermin festival, which takes place in July in Pamplona, Spain has been cancelled for the second year in a row.