‘Cautious hugging’ and pints, Johnson promises
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to give the green light to “cautious hugging” and allowing pubs to serve customers pints indoors after months of strict anticoronavirus measures.
Aided by one of the fastest vaccine roll-outs in the world, Britain’s daily case and death numbers have dropped sharply enabling it to emerge from a lockdown imposed in January to tackle a second wave.
The government set out plans on Friday to slowly reopen international travel and Johnson is expected to confirm that the next set of easing will come into force on May 17, with pubs, restaurants and cinemas opening indoors.
People should also be able to meet in groups of up to 30 outdoors, while six people or two households can meet indoors. The government is also expected to say whether the rules around social distancing with friends and family can ease, prompting headlines about “cautious hugging”.
That reopening will apply to England only, with the devolved governments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales setting out their own rules.
German firm BioNTech, which developed the Pfizer vaccine, meanwhile, has said there is no evidence it needs to be adapted to counter virus variants.
The Mainz-based company’s press release said that “to date, there is no evidence that an adaptation of BioNTech’s current
Covid-19 vaccine against key identified emerging variants is necessary”.
Meanwhile Norway should exclude vaccines made by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson from its inoculation programme due to a risk of rare but harmful sideeffects, a government-appointed commission said yesterday.
However, those who volunteer to take either vaccine should be allowed to do so, it said.
Norway suspended the AstraZeneca vaccine roll-out on March 11 after a small number of younger inoculated people suffered a combination of blood clots, bleeding and a low platelet count.
In Spain, officials called for “responsibility” after weekend images show people celebrating the state of emergency’s end without masks or social distancing.
“The end of the state of emergency does not mean the end of restrictions. Far from it. The virus threat still exists,” Justice Minister Juan Carlos Campo wrote in an opinion piece in El Pais daily.
And in Italy, a 23-year-old woman was under observation in a hospital in Tuscany after receiving six doses of the Pfizer vaccine in error, news agency AGI said.
The woman was in good condition following the injection on Sunday, AGI reported. Instead of injecting one dose, a nurse mistakenly injected the entire vial, the equivalent of six doses.