Covid-19 Daily Bulletin

04 Mar

4 March 2021

A series of daily updates for CHO members regarding relevant updates pertaining to Coronavirus from home and abroad.

Key Announcements:

  • According to government statistics, the number of new confirmed cases of Coronavirus yesterday was 6,385. A total of 315 people lost their lives within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.
  • A total of 20,703,615 people have now had their first dose of the vaccine, with 895,412 having also had a second dose.
  • The government has announced that authorised covid vaccines that have been modified for new variants will not need a brand-new approval or lengthy clinical studies. This comes as part of new guidance from a coalition of regulatory authorities including the UK.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
  • Following yesterday’s Budget, Labour leader Keir Starmer has accused the Chancellor of burying a £30bn cut to day-to-day spending for DHSC. NHS England core resource spending, which includes covid spending, is set to fall from £147.7bn this year to £139.1bn next year.

Regional/Devolved

  • Wales’ Chief Pharmacist Andrew Evans has announced that a large rise in supplies means more vaccines should be delivered than ever before in Wales from next week. More than 300,000 doses a day could be administered across the country.

International

  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel has unveiled plans to gradually ease Covid restrictions across the country, despite concerns over the spread of new variants of the virus. From Monday, Germans will be allowed to socialise more, with up to five adults from two households allowed to meet up.
  • In the US, President Joe Biden has criticised the lifting of mask requirements in the states of Texas and Mississippi, calling it “Neanderthal thinking”. The US has recorded 28.7m infections and 519,000 deaths related to Covid-19 since the pandemic began.
  • Rwanda has become the first African nation to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, with around 100,000 doses delivered yesterday as part of the Covax initiative. Pfizer said the first shipment to the continent of its vaccine represented “an important milestone for the region, for Rwanda, and for the global health partners working tirelessly to fight this pandemic”.
  • Greece has extended its coronavirus lockdown to 16 March as it reported the highest number of new cases recorded so far in 2021. Health officials reported 2,702 new infections and 40 deaths yesterday.

Stakeholder

  • A report from the World Obesity Federation has found that countries with high levels of overweight people, such as the UK and the US, have the highest death rates from Covid-19. The report finds that about 2.2m of the 2.5m deaths from Covid were in countries with high levels of overweight people.
  • A study from Imperial College has found that the decline in Covid infections may have slowed after infections fell by two-thirds in January and February. The study finds that lower virus levels are needed to get the best out of the vaccination programme.