Covid news: Lockdown extended in Northern Ireland as over 500,000 get second vaccine

Pakistan has said it expects to receive 2.8 million doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine on 2 March and will begin vaccinating over-60s.

The country began its immunisation programme this month, vaccinating frontline health workers with 500,000 doses of Sinopharm’s vaccine donated by China.

It will receive the AstraZeneca doses via the Covax initiative, which is supplying vaccines to poorer countries.

“I can confirm according to the information we’ve been given that we will receive 2.8 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine as part of the COVAX,” health minister Faisal Sultan told a news conference.

Pakistan has recorded more than 550,000 coronavirus cases and over 12,000 deaths.

Here’s a graphic showing the number of positive Covid-19 cases in the UK per 1,000 tests, by Statista

Only 55 per cent of Black people in England in their 70s had received a Covid-19 vaccine by last week compared to 86 per cent of white people in the same age range, a study has shown.

Among those from South Asian backgrounds, 73 per cent of people aged 70-79 had been vaccinated by 11 February, according to a study by OpenSafely, run by the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Simon Stevens, chief executive of the National Health Service in England, on Monday said higher rates of vaccine hesitancy are a “real concern” and that a huge effort was being made to overcome it.

It comes as an advert featuring Black and British-Asian celebrities is set to air across commercial television to encourage ethnic minority groups to accept a vaccine.

The number of people in England who have received two doses of a Covid vaccine has passed half a million, according to the latest NHS data. 

A total of 14,318,115 Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England between 8 December and 17 February, according to provisional NHS England data, including first and second doses. Of this number, 13,817,914 were the first doses while 500,201 were a second dose.

A further 309 people have died in hospital in England after testing positive for the coronavirus, taking the total number of confirmed deaths reported in hospitals to 80,424, NHS England has said.

Patients were aged between 21 and 101. All except 11, aged between 42 and 96, had known underlying health conditions.

The deaths were between 20 December and 17 February, with the majority being on or after 14 February.

There were 52 other deaths reported with no positive Covid-19 test result.

Infection rates in England are continuing to fall among all age groups, Public Health England has said.

The highest rate is among 30 to 39-year-olds, which stood at 192.5 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 14 February, down week-on-week from 270.8.

Among 20 to 29-year-olds the rate dropped from 253.2 to 173.4, and for 40 to 49-year-olds it fell from 232.2 to 162.9.

For people aged 80 and over, the rate fell from 208.0 to 129.6.

The Stormont executive has agreed to extend Northern Ireland’s current lockdown to 1 April, but pupils will begin a phased return to the classroom from March.

Primary school pupils in year groups P1 to P3 will return to face-to-face learning on 8 March, the PA news agency understands, while secondary school pupils in year groups 12 to 14 will return to school on 22 March.

The decision continue the main lockdown restrictions to April will be subject to a review on 18 March.

Ministers also agreed to relax restrictions on “click and collect” shopping to allow some outlets previously categorised as non-essential retailers to take part.

Cleaners, porters and kitchen staff at a number of London hospitals are being denied full sick pay for Covid-related absences due to an ongoing dispute between an NHS trust and one of its private contractors, The Independent can reveal.

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust and its provider Mitie, a British facility management company, have refused to provide full sick pay for outsourced ancillary staff since 1 October 2020 after the government withdrew strict guidance on the maintenance of payments to suppliers.

Those who have fallen ill with Covid-19 throughout the current winter wave have been forced to stay at home on a third of their usual pay – often for two or more weeks at a time.

Exclusive by Samuel Lovett:

Asking parents to test their children regularly for Covid-19 is “fraught with difficulty” and a “huge ask”, the leader of the UK’s largest teaching union has said.

Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), warned that parents may not want to test their children at home as it could have implications for their paid work.

When asked about the reports that families could be asked to use rapid coronavirus tests on their children when they are back in class, Dr Bousted told the PA news agency: “I think again that is fraught with difficulty as well because I think there’s been a big parental reaction to the notion that they’ve got to swab their children up their noses or down their throats.

“And of course lots of parents probably will not want to know if their child has got Covid because they will be asymptomatic and that has implications for them being able to work.

“I do think that’s a huge ask and if the government is going to make that ask of parents - and if it’s going to make any asks to schools in terms of testing - it really has to be very clear about the science on which that is based because otherwise it will be difficult to make it happen.”