UK joins France with plan to launch vaccine passports
LONDON/ NEW YORK: Britain is working on a digital Covid-19 vaccine passport as the move to restart travel in Europe gathers pace. The UK initiative, disclosed on Wednesday by transport secretary Grant Shapps, is based on an existing National Health Service (NHS) app, which will be adapted to help travellers prove they’ve had a jab or tested negative for the virus.
The announcement comes a day after France started to trial short flights with a tracing app updated to host records of shots and tests.
“In terms of vaccine certification, I can confirm we are working on an NHS application,” Shapps told Sky News. “It will be the NHS app that is used for people when they book appointments with the NHS and so on.”
Vaccine passports are emerging as a key plank of efforts to jump-start European tourism in time for the summer peak. Britain had previously said that it was under consideration ahead of a planned reopening on May 17, while the EU aims to introduce digital passes by June after governments reached a deal on technical standards earlier his month.
Canada reports its first death linked to AZ shot
A 54-year woman has died in Canada after receiving Astrazeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, the first fatality linked to the drug in the country, provincial authorities announced on Tuesday.
“I’m sad to know that a healthy 54-year-old woman... died because she was vaccinated.
It’s hard to take,” Francois Legault, the premier of Quebec, told reporters.
The French-speaking province’s chief public health officer Horacio Arruda said life-saving treatments did not work and the unidentified patient died of cerebral thrombosis after being vaccinated.
Pfizer: Oral drug could be ready next year
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has said that an oral drug for treating the coronavirus disease could be ready next year, adding that the company is currently working on two antivirals - oral and injectable.
“We are actually [working] on two, one is injectable and the other one an oral [antiviral]... Particularly the attention is on the oral one for the world and for us because it provides several advantages, and one of them is that you don’t need to go to the hospital to get the treatment, which is the case with all the injectables,” Bourla told CNBC. “If all goes well... I hope that by the end of the year [it will be ready].”