Not enough evidence to show that third vaccine doses are needed, says WHO; Germany to re-evaluate basing restrictions on case numbers
- WHO says greed is driving vaccine disparities
- Dutch PM sorry for early reopening as France tightens Covid rules
- France mandates Covid health pass for restaurants and cafés
- ‘How long can Australia go on like this?’: what world thought of ‘feeble’ vaccine rollout
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said on Tuesday that a sufficient number of hospitals combined with a speed-up in the vaccination rollout among the elderly meant the city will be able to hold “safe and secure” Olympics in ten days.
But Koike, speaking to Reuters in an interview at the Tokyo government headquarters which has for the last few weeks doubled as a vaccination site, also warned that the coronavirus pandemic is far from over and the spreading Delta variant remains a risk.
Politico’s London Playbook email has this nugget this morning on what it says is the thinking of some more cautions Conservative MPs on the back-benches of parliament in the UK:
Playbook has detected increasing unease in the Tory Party over the decision to choose now as the time to ditch legal enforcement of Covid measures. One Tory MP said that, given how bad the projected case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths are, Downing Street would lose nothing by staying at Step 3 — which has most restrictions eased anyway — but keeping the legal requirements on masks and other social distancing measures.
They argued it makes “no sense” to open nightclubs while cases are at 30,000 per day and young people aren’t double vaccinated, suggesting the appetite for clubbing will be pretty low. They accepted that a new lockdown was not wanted or justified, but proposed a “slightly less unhappy medium” — keeping Step 3 in place for another month or so until every adult has the chance to be fully vaccinated.
