UK’s highest daily cases in 60 days US, India, China account for 60% of vax distributed globally: WHO
The govt says it is considering options around a planned end to the lockdown on June 21
London, June 5: The United Kingdom government on Saturday said it is considering “options” around a planned end to lockdown on June 21 after the country recorded the highest number of daily
Covid-19 cases in just over two months.
The UK recorded a further 6,238 Coronavirus cases on Friday as England’s R number, or the rate of infection, continues to rise and the latest government numbers also show another 11
Covid-19 related deaths. “Of course officials are drawing up other options but we are still expecting to be in a place to go ahead on June 21,” a UK government figure told Sky News.
Options under discussion are said to include retaining the wearing of masks in certain settings and continuing the work from home advice, even as the hospitality sector opens up. However, the government maintains that there is "nothing in the data" to suggest ending lockdown should be delayed.
The number of Covid-19 cases in the country is now at its highest since March 25, when 6,397 were recorded, and the spike is largely down to the Delta variant — or the highly transmissible B1.617.2 variant of concern (VOC) first detected in India. UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that a rise of cases was to be expected as the country came out of lockdown.
“We always expected cases to rise as the country was opened up, the critical thing is the impact on the number of people who end up in hospital for any given number of cases,” said Hancock. “That link has been broken by the vaccine, but it hasn’t been completely severed yet. That’s one of the things that we’re watching very carefully, and it’s too early to say what the decision will be ahead of June 21, but we’ll make sure people know in good time,” he said.
The National Health Service (NHS) said it has seen a huge jump in the number of people coming forward for a Covid jab since launching its plan to tackle vaccine hesitancy. There has been an increase of more than a fifth among adults under 45 who would definitely get their vaccine according to
5: Of the two billion Covid-19 vaccine doses distributed globally till now, about 60 per cent have gone to just three countries — the US, India and China, a senior adviser at the World Health Organisation said.
Senior Advisor to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Bruce Aylward made the comments at a press briefing on Friday.
This week, we will see over two billion doses we will probably pass the two billion doses landmark in terms of the number of doses of the vaccines and new Covid vaccines that have actually been developed. These have been distributed
a new study, which surveyed 16,610 people from a nationally representative sample. According to the findings, 63 per cent would definitely get the jab, with a further 21 per cent likely to accept.
Anyone aged 30 and above is now eligible for a vaccine and the NHS said more than half of people in their thirties have already been jabbed. now in over 212 countries, Aylward said.
If we look at that two billion doses, over 75 per cent of it has gone to just 10 countries. And in fact three countries — China, the US and India — account for about 60 per cent of those doses, he said.
He said while COVAX has played an important role in distributing the Covid-19 doses to 127 countries and getting several countries to start their vaccination drives, the challenge is in the access to the vaccines.
He said the 60 per cent of the two billion doses that have gone to China, India and the US are all domestically procured and used.
Aylward noted that at the other end of the spectrum, only about 0.5 per cent of doses globally have gone to the lowest income countries that account for about 10 per cent of the world’s population.
And even if we look at the lower middle income countries, it’s only fractionally higher than that in terms of the coverage that we’re getting. So we’re increasingly seeing a twotrack recovery and rollout of the vaccines, he said.
While there is high vaccine coverage deep into the high risk populations and younger populations in high income countries, we are still struggling to get sufficient product just to be able to vaccinate the health care workers, older populations in low income countries who are really the key to getting out of the health, societal and economic crisis that we are in the midst of.
Aylward said about 80 million doses have been distributed through COVAX so far and the global alliance for equitable vaccine distribution is about 200 million doses behind where it should be due to the disruption in COVAX supplies as a result of the devastating second wave in India.
The problem now is the supplies are being interrupted.