Plus, what a bored tennis player did in quarantine...
| AstraZeneca boss defends EU vaccine rollout |
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| | | The boss of vaccine maker AstraZeneca has defended his company - amid an ongoing row with the EU about delays to supply. On Monday, the EU health commissioner accused AstraZeneca of giving "insufficient explanations". But Pascal Soriot told Italian newspaper La Repubblica the delay was partly caused by the EU agreeing its vaccine deal relatively late. "We've also had teething issues like this in the UK supply chain," he said. "But the UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced." Mr Soriot said his team was working "24/7" to fix the supply issues. You can read about the EU's vaccination problems here, and see how its vaccine rollout compares with other countries - including the UK - here. | |
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| Hotel quarantine for Covid 'hotspots' |
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| As we reported on Tuesday, the UK is to introduce "hotel quarantine" for some people entering the country. Yesterday, the government hadn't decided whether it would apply to all arrivals - or just those from "high risk" countries. Now, after a late night meeting, it seems it will apply only to "high risk" areas, including South America, southern Africa, and Portugal. Labour has called for a tougher policy. Although each part of the UK sets its own travel rules, it's thought all four nations will introduce hotel quarantine. Yesterday, Scotland's deputy first minister, John Swinney, said it would go "at least as far" as England. You can read the current UK travel rules here. | |
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| Church calls for reflection after 100,000 UK Covid deaths |
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| On Tuesday evening, another 1,631 deaths within 28 days of a Covid test were announced in the UK - taking the total above 100,000 since the start of the pandemic. Now, the Church of England's archbishops have urged the public to reflect on the "enormity" of the figure. "Each number is a person: someone we loved and someone who loved us," said Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell. So why is the UK's death toll so bad? Read more here. |
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| | | | | By 3:01am, alone in a hospital room, Ann Fitzgerald reached for her phone. This would be her last chance to contact her husband of four decades, the man she'd raised two children with, her Tony - to Ann, he was always her Tony. The couple had made a pact. So long as Ann was in hospital with Covid, Tony would spend his nights dozing upright in a chair at their bungalow in Pewfall, Merseyside. That way, he would wake up if there was a message alert. It wasn't much of a sacrifice, Tony thought, not when the woman he'd loved for 47 years was all by herself and frightened. And besides, each time his phone bleeped Tony would know she was still alive, and silently he'd thank the stars. And so in the early hours of Tuesday 7 April, Ann's last message arrived. | |
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| | | | It's the UK's 100,000 milestone which dominates the front pages. The Times pictures 20 of the victims, while pointing out the UK is the fifth country to reach a six-figure death toll. Read all the front pages here. | |
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| If you watch one thing today |
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| If you listen to one thing today |
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| If you read one thing today |
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