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The Australian state of New South Wales has again complained that it is not being told key details about the commonwealth’s vaccine rollout, including which of the state’s aged care facilities have begun immunisation, plans for the potential involvement of the military, and when aged care staff might be immunised:
New Zealand’s government has said it is still too early to make a decision on extending Auckland’s lockdown, despite the city recording no new community cases of coronavirus for a second consecutive day.
More than 16,000 tests were processed on Tuesday, returning no positive results, three days into a week of level-three restrictions in the nation’s biggest city.
The director general of health, Ashley Bloomfield, had earlier said that this would be a pivotal point in signalling whether there had been further transmission from the February Auckland cluster:
US president Joe Biden said the country was on track to have enough vaccines for every adult in the country by the end of May.
“When we came into office, the prior administration had contracted for not nearly enough vaccine to cover adults in America. We rectified that,” he said:
Girls and young women aged between 14 and 24 are taking responsibility for the majority of household chores during the pandemic, leaving them less time to focus on their education, according to a new survey.
Sixty-six percent of girls and women aged between 14 and 24 said they are spending more time cooking for their families as a result of the pandemic, compared with 31% of boys and men in the same age group.
Women and girls are also spending more time cleaning (69%, compared with 58% of boys and men), shopping (52%, compared with 49%), and looking after siblings (28%, compared with 16%), according to a survey of 1,000 men and women aged 14-30 produced by a market research agency for the children’s charity Theirworld:
Here is the video of Dolly Parton receiving her vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vacciiiiine:
Dolly Parton has been inoculated with the Covid-19 vaccine that she helped to fund.
The country music star, 75, broke into song while getting the Moderna jab and adapted one of her best-known ballads.
To the tune of Jolene, she sang: “Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, I’m begging of you, please don’t hesitate. Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, because once you’re dead, then that’s a bit too late.”
Dolly gets a dose of her own medicine. @VUMChealth pic.twitter.com/38kJrDzLqC
— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) March 2, 2021
Parton was credited with helping fund the Moderna vaccine after donating $1m (£716,000) to Vanderbilt University medical centre in Nashville, Tennessee:
Joe Biden has said that the US expects to have enough coronavirus vaccines for all adults by the end of May, two months earlier than anticipated, as his administration announced that the drugmaker Merck would help produce Johnson & Johnson’s newly approved shot.
With the bolstered supply, Biden also announced he would be using the powers of the federal government to direct all states to prioritize vaccinating teachers and said the federal government would provide the doses directly through its pharmacy program.
He challenged states to administer at least one dose of the vaccine to all educators by the end of March as part of his administration’s efforts to reopen more schools across the nation.
“We’re now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in America by the end of May,” said Biden.
The president described the partnership between the two drug companies as a “major step forward” in expanding vaccine access to every American, and likened the partnership to the spirit of national cooperation during the second world war:
Brazil on Tuesday posted a national single-day record for Covid deaths with 1,641 people dying from the disease, according to Health Ministry data.
That surpassed the previous single-day high of 1,595 Covid deaths recorded in late July 2020, as Brazil faces a new peak in coronavirus cases and the hospital system is pushed to the brink of collapse.
More than 257,000 people have died of Covid in Brazil, according to the official count, making it the deadliest outbreak after that of the United States.
Roughly 10.6 million people have been infected since the pandemic began, according to the Health Ministry, with 59,925 new cases reported on Tuesday.
Brazilian state governors said on Tuesday they would join together to buy Covid vaccines and bypass the federal government, which has been slow to roll out its vaccine program.
Worldwide, more than 168 million children have had their schools completely shut for almost a year, according to UNICEF, due to coronavirus lockdowns.
One in seven children – 214 million – have missed more than three-quarters of in-person learning.
Here is what else the study found:
Unicef explains the impact of school closures which, they say:
Have devastating consequences for children’s learning and wellbeing. The most vulnerable children and those unable to access remote learning are at an increased risk of never returning to the classroom, and even being forced into child marriage or child labor.”
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments for the next few hours.
Our top line this morning: A staggering 168m children worldwide have had their schools closed for the past year due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to Unicef. We’ll have more on this soon.
Here are the other key recent developments: