Norway halts AstraZeneca vaccine as homeless prioritised for jab, Hancock says

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s rolling coverage of the coronavirus crisis.

John Lewis has warned it does not expect all its stores to reopen after lockdown following a £517m annual loss over the course of the pandemic.

The group did not say how many of its 42 John Lewis shops are under threat, adding that it will make a final decision at the end of March following discussions with landlords.

Recent reports suggested another eight stores were likely to be closed, adding to the eight announced in July.

The government must reveal how it will ease travel restrictions by 12 April, a cross-party group of MPs has demanded.

For the last 11 weeks, all holidays from the UK have been illegal. Residents of England have been told they may not go abroad for non-essential purposes until 17 May at the earliest.

The administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have not yet set proposed dates for ending their bans on overseas travel.

In an interim report into the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the aviation sector, the Transport Select Committee says: “The aviation industry thrives on certainty. In order to return passenger aircraft to the skies and to connect the UK to the world, a roadmap to restart international travel is urgently needed.

“The Department [for Transport] has not yet specified the standards that destination countries must meet on vaccine and testing capabilities in order to reopen for travel with the UK.”

Simon Calder reports:

A new treatment has been found to cut Covid hospitalisation and deaths by 85 per cent, the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has announced.

The drug, VIR-7831, is a monoclonal antibody treatment – laboratory-produced molecules that mimic human antibodies – which has been found to be successful in treating people with mild to moderate Covid.

GSK and its partner, Vir Biotechnology, plan to immediately seek an emergency use authorisation in the United States and approval in other countries, including potentially in the UK.

A separate study has found that VIR-7831 is effective against the main current Covid-19 variants, including the Kent, South African and Brazilian variants, the firm said.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has defended Keir Starmer’s “constructive” attitude towards dealing with the government during the pandemic.

Ms Rayner told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Keir Starmer made a decision, which I think was the right one, to try and be constructive, and to ensure that we gave constructive opposition that worked in the national interest.

“And that’s what we focused on. Now I know some people felt that that was giving them an easy ride, it wasn’t.

“It’s incredibly frustrating, especially when you see the kids not getting the laptops they need, when they’re not giving them the food, when the billions of pounds has been squandered.”

She added that Labour has “highlighted” these issues while trying to maintain a “constructive” approach.

China will continue to cooperate with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its search for the origins of the coronavirus, Chinese premier Li Keqiang told a media briefing.

Mr Li was responding to a question regarding US criticism that China was not transparent in sharing data on early infections with a WHO probe earlier this year.

The premier, speaking on Thursday at a press briefing at the end of China’s annual session of parliament, said China had “acted in a fact-based manner and with an open, transparent and cooperative approach”.

As prospective holidaymakers wait to see if summer trips may go ahead, the UK’s main gateway says passenger numbers have fallen to their lowest level since 1966 – the year England won the World Cup.

Heathrow’s figures for February show just 461,000 passengers arrived or departed during the entire four-week spell.

Normally the London airport would handle more travellers than that in just two days.

It was the first full month since the third lockdown began, and coincided with the introduction of hotel quarantine for arrivals from 33 “red list” countries.

Read Simon Calder’s report here:

Cancer patients receive limited protection from a single dose of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine, researchers have said, urging a review of the 12-week gap for patients.

A study from King’s College London and the Francis Crick Institute found that three weeks after the first shot, antibody responses were found in 39 per cent of people with solid cancers and 13 per cent of people with blood cancer.

This compares with 97 per cent of people without cancer, according to the research on 205 people, who comprised 151 with cancer and 54 healthy controls.

When cancer patients were given their second shot within three weeks, 95 per cent of people with solid tumours had detectable antibodies.

Although researcher called for patients to be given the second jab within Pfizer’s recommended three-week window, Cancer Research UK said the study – which has not yet been peer-reviewed – was relatively small and people should continue to follow the advice of their doctors.

A&E attendances at hospitals in England were down by one-third in February compared to a year ago, the latest figures from NHS England show.

A total of 1.3 million attendances were recorded in February 2021, down from 2 million in February 2020.

After adjusting for the leap year in 2020, NHS England said attendances were down year-on-year by 33 per cent.

NHS England said the drop is “likely to be a result of the Covid-19 response” – suggesting that people are still staying away from A&E departments because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Emergency admissions to A&E at hospitals in England also fell last month, down from 510,811 in February 2020 to 421,651 in February 2021 – NHS England also attributes this to the pandemic.

Urgent cancer referrals by GPs in England fell by 11 per cent in January compared to a year ago, NHS England figures show.

A total of 171,231 referrals were made in January 2021, compared with 191,852 in January 2020.

The year-on-year drop follows increases of 7 per cent in December 2020 and 2 per cent in November.

Urgent referrals for breast cancer symptoms decreased by 13 per cent, from 14,299 in January 2020 to 12,437 in January 2021.