In December, two weeks before the European Medicines Agency authorised the first vaccine against Covid-19 for use across the European Union, Berlin unveiled a plan to rocket-fuel its immunisation drive with German precision engineering. Jabs would be mass-administered in purpose-built vaccination centres
Just days after signing the $1.9tn coronavirus relief package into law, Joe Biden was on the road selling the benefits of the bill to the American people – and also to his own party’s political prospects. The president kicked off his “Help is Here”
The UK has set a new daily coronavirus vaccine record for the second day running. A further 873,784 doses were administered on Saturday, health secretary Matt Hancock confirmed. This included 686,424 first doses and 70,449 second doses in England, 9,415 first doses and 13,160
Winters in Berlin are notoriously tough but this year has been like no other. “I’m really tired of it,” Ina Eggers, a teacher in the city, says. “Winter is always hard but now [with lockdown] we don’t have anything to do, so
To the dates 4 August 1914 and 3 September 1939 can now be added a third: 23 March 23 2020, the day the government declared war on Covid-19 and announced a lockdown to combat the virus. It’s strange how history repeats itself. The same
The Dutch government suspended the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine over reports of blood clotting in Norway, adding its name to the list of nations including Ireland, Denmark and Iceland. The suspension in the Netherlands will last until at least March 29 and has
Boris Johnson will put up to 1 million jobs at risk if he fails to name a date for the reopening of pubs, restaurants and other hospitality venues when he unveils his roadmap out of lockdown on Monday, industry sources have warned. Trade body UK Hospitality said it had received indications from
A new strain of COVID-19 was identified in the UK just before Christmas – the Kent variant – and since then others have been discovered. This week, Public Health England confirmed at least 38 cases of a new Covid strain that was first
Germany suffered its largest economic contraction since 2009 last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, with gross domestic product shrinking by six percent. Industry leaders are now calling on Ms Merkel to publish a strategy allowing pandemic restrictions to lift to help
The UK risks a new wave of coronavirus as large as the current one if coronavirus restrictions are lifted too soon, a government scientific advisor has said. Professor Steven Riley said the “incredibly successful” rollout of the vaccine and “incredibly high vast uptake” does not mean
Ocado has reported booming sales at its online grocery service as shoppers switched to supermarket home delivery services during the Covid-19 pandemic. Retail sales at Ocado, which now delivers Marks & Spencer groceries, jumped 35% to £2.2bn in 2020, but the overall group, which includes
The United States has administered an average of 1.3 million Covid-19 vaccine doses per day in the last week, as cases and hospitalisations continue to decline across the country. “We are on track to meet the president’s goal of 100 million shots in 100
