UK Covid Variant: Germany to enter strict shutdown

Germany will enter a strict shutdown for five days over Easter amid surging virus rates, Chancellor Angela Merkel and regional leaders agreed yesterday as criticism mounted over the government's handling of the pandemic.

As well as extending existing measures including keeping cultural, leisure and sporting facilities shut through to April 18, Merkel and Germany's 16 state premiers ordered a tougher shutdown between April 1 and 5.

Almost all shops will be closed during the five days, and religious services will be moved online over Easter. Only grocers will be allowed to open on Saturday April 3.

"The situation is serious. Case numbers are rising exponentially and intensive care beds are filling up again," said Merkel.

The British variant has become the dominant strain circulating in Germany, she said, noting: "We are in a new pandemic."

"Essentially, we have a new virus... it is much deadlier, much more infectious and infectious for much longer," the veteran leader said.

Vice-chancellor Olaf Scholz told public broadcaster ZDF it was "right to use the period of Easter to pull on the brakes".

But patience is running thin in Germany over a sluggish vaccine rollout, a delayed start to mass rapid testing and higher infection numbers despite months of shutdowns, with support for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party at its lowest level for a year.

In India, a high-level government panel has concluded there is no increased risk of blood clotting so far linked to Covishield and Covaxin, the vaccines that India's drug regulator DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India) cleared earlier this year.

The assurance comes after several European nations, a few days ago, temporarily paused the rollout of AstraZeneca vaccine over blood clot fears, reports NDTV online.

Last week, leading EU countries said they would resume the use of vaccine as the European medical regulator said the jab is "safe and effective".

India announced yesterday it will open its vaccination drive to all over-45s from April 1 in a bid to boost its massive but flagging inoculation drive as infections rise.

India has so far vaccinated nearly 50 million people but the programme to inoculate 300 million people by the end of July is behind schedule, experts said.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca Plc yesterday said it will release the most up-to-date results from its latest Covid-19 vaccine trial within 48 hours after US health officials publicly criticised the drugmaker for using outdated information in a press release earlier this week.

The move comes after the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases said the monitoring board charged with ensuring the safety and accuracy of the trial had expressed concern that the company may be giving an "incomplete" picture of the shot's effectiveness, reports Reuters.

China's drug authority has approved for clinical trials an inhaled Covid-19 vaccine co-developed by domestic firm CanSino Biologics, the company said in a filing yesterday.

The move comes after the National Medical Products Administration gave another CanSino vaccine conditional approval last month, allowing it for public use.

Vaccination drives are seen as crucial to overcoming the pandemic that has killed more than 2.7 million people since first emerging in China in late 2019.

The World Health Organization (WHO) director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Monday slammed the "grotesque" vaccine gap, calling it a "moral outrage."

"Countries that are now vaccinating younger, healthy people at low risk of disease are doing so at the cost of the lives of health workers, older people and other at-risk groups in other countries," he said.