Britain likely to delay final stage of reopening as Delta cases shoot up
LONDON/MEXICO CITY: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to delay lifting the remaining coronavirus restrictions in England as data shows a further rise in cases of the rapidly spreading Delta variant, the UK media has reported.
Johnson is due to announce on Monday whether the planned lifting of restrictions, which would see an end to limits on social contact, can go ahead on June 21.
China, meanwhile, is conducting clinical trials on a Covid-19 vaccine that can be taken by inhalation, the second such one undergoing testing in the country, media reports said.
The inhalation vaccine is being jointly developed by researchers from Institute of Military Medicine under the Academy of Military Sciences, affiliated to the People’s Liberation Army, and China’s Cansino Biologics, Xinhua reported.
In Mexico, about a quarter of the country’s 126 million people are estimated to have been infected with the coronavirus, the health ministry said on Friday, far more than the country’s confirmed infections.
The 2020 national health and nutrition survey showed that about 31.1 million people have had the disease, the ministry said, citing Tonatiuh Barrientos, an official at the National Institute of Public Health.
Canadian health authorities have halted the distribution of the single dose Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine after it emerged that an active ingredient was made at Emergent Biosolutions facility in Baltimore, Maryland that has been flagged by the US FDA. Canada had received 300,000 doses of the vaccine manufactured by Janssen, a firm owned by Johnson & Johnson on April 28.
Moderna said that scientific evidence it has reviewed doesn’t suggest that its Covid-19 vaccine was the cause of a heart condition in some people who received it.
It said on Friday that after reviewing the safety data on its shot for cases of myocarditis and pericarditis, it “has not established a causal association with its vaccine”.