Coronavirus live news: Israel ends outdoor mask-wearing; UK cabinet minister defends Hancock over NHS contracts

It is “too early to say” whether all hospitality businesses can open as planned on May 17, the UK government’s environment minister has said.

“Well, it is too early to say. But I think we are on track in the sense that we are on track with the rollout of the vaccination programme,” George Eustice told Andrew Marr. “We have now vaccinated everybody over the age of 50 and this week they are offering vaccinations as well to those under the age of 50, starting with the 45 to 59-year-olds – so that bit is on track.”

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“But we are being a bit cautious here. So although we have now got 60% of the adult population vaccinated we do just have to keep a close eye on these variants of concern.

“Also, see what the impacts are of the easements we have just made, the loosenings we have just made, before moving to the next stage.”

Should India be added to the UK’s travel red list, amid concerns about a new variant in the country?

Not at the moment, but it’s being kept under regular review, according to environment secretary George Eustice.

“Well, we’re allowing people in from India provided they have had a pre-departure test, provided they then quarantine – albeit not in a hotel or a designated facility, but quarantine at home – and then have a test at two and eight days,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. “So there are quite a lot of robust tests and checks for anybody coming into the country.

“But, look, we keep this under regular review. We take the advice of the scientific experts on this. If the advice is we should change that and move to the red list we would.”

Pfizer has agreed to supply Japan with additional doses of its coronavirus vaccine, the country’s vaccine minister said on Sunday.

“They have agreed on the essentials of the matter,” vaccine minister Taro Kono said during a TV interview on Fuji TV, but that they needed to iron out further details including the timeframe.

Kono did not reveal how many extra doses the country had requested from Pfizer, but that Japan would secure enough by the end of September to inoculate all people over 16.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is the only coronavirus inoculation approved in the Japan at present, and the vaccine rollout isn’t moving particularly quickly – as of Friday, 0.9% of the population had received their first vaccine shot, compared to 2.5% in South Korea, and 48% in the UK.

All this comes amid a surge in the number of coronavirus cases in the country, which health experts have warned could mark a fourth wave of the pandemic.

Dr Susan Hopkins also said that there was not enough information about the Indian variant of coronavirus to classify it as a “variant of concern”, but that scientists were investigating.

“We have seen a couple of cases (of the Indian variant) that haven’t arisen from travel but we’re still trying to undergo the investigations to look in great detail at where they might have acquired it from,” she said.

“To escalate it up the ranking we need to know that it is increased transmissibility, increased severity or vaccine evading, and we just don’t have that yet.”

The chief medical adviser for NHS Test and Trace said it appears to be possible to become reinfected with a different strain of coronavirus, and that there had been cases of this happening.

“We have seen some people who have had their first dose of vaccine who have had the South African variant and the variant that arose in Kent,” Dr Susan Hopkins told BBC’s Andrew Marr show. “That’s to be expected, we know that these vaccines aren’t 100% protecting you against infection and that’s why we ask people to take caution.

“You can see that they’re not as good against the South African variant as they are against our own (variant) B117 at preventing infection and transmission.”

Dr Hopkins said that vaccines were a “primer” for the immune system and would help reduce hospitalisations and deaths from the virus.

Russia has recorded a further 8,632 cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours, including 2,252 in the capital Moscow, Reuters reports.

This takes the total number of cases in the country to 4,702,101.

The country also reported another 389 deaths, raising the official toll to 105,582.

Australia is in no hurry to open up its international borders, prime minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday. The country has managed to return to something close to normality in recent months.

Australia closed its borders to everyone except citizens and residents in March 2020, and has been allowing just a small number of international arrivals in recent months – mainly citizens returning from abroad. This measure, alongside swift lockdowns, successful contact tracing, and high rates of compliance with public health measures, has been credited with making Australia’s response to the pandemic highly successful.

The country has recorded 29,500 cases of coronavirus, and 910 deaths. While there is of course a population difference, this stands in stark contrast to many other countries across the world – with the UK recording more than 4 million cases and 125,000 deaths.

“Australia is in no hurry to open those borders, I assure you,” Morrison said at a TV briefing. “I will not be putting at risk the way we are living in this country which is so different to the rest of the world today.”

The Labour Party has called for a thorough investigation into lobbying in the UK government, amid a series of high profile lobbying scandals linked to coronavirus contracts in recent months.

What’s the background?

This week, health secretary Matt Hancock came under fire for reportedly waiting two months to declare his shares in a firm which was approved for NHS contracts.

Meanwhile, former prime minister David Cameron has been criticised for lobbying contacts at the treasury for a firm for which he was a senior adviser with share options reportedly worth $60 million.

What do Labour want?

Speaking on Sophy Ridge’s Sky News programme, Labour’s shadow communities secretary said the government needed an “open inquiry” into lobbying.

“What we need is an open inquiry and not one where the Conservatives are marking their own homework because Boris Johnson has shown repeatedly over the past year that he is not interested in exposing what is going wrong or stopping what’s going wrong,” Steve Reed said.

“If we have an independent parliamentary inquiry into what’s going on, open and transparent – and in David Cameron’s own words, sunlight is the best disinfectant – let’s expose this whole situation to sunlight, let’s see exactly what’s going on, let’s pull in everybody to public hearings that the public can see as well as MPs and find out what’s going on and let’s put in measures that prevent it from occurring.”

“One of them might well be that the Prime Minister should not be the person who decides whether there are investigations into his own ministers for breaches of the ministerial code.”

Eustice said there is no evidence that the Indian variant of coronavirus is able to “get around” the vaccine, or was more contagious than other variants.

The environment secretary also said that cases of the variant were “fairly small” at present.

“The last I think I saw… there were around 70 cases. But I think I’ve seen lots of different numbers on different variants… so it is a fairly small number at the moment. But it is something that we are watching,” Eustice told Sophy Ridge’s Sky News programme.

“I’m told that there is no evidence at the moment that this particular variant is able to get around the vaccine, for instance, or indeed that it is necessarily more contagious than the others.”

Israel is today ending its outdoor mask-wearing rule and reopening middle schools, in the country’s latest step towards normality.

The country has had a highly successful vaccine rollout, with 54% of its 9.3 million population having received both shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and has recorded sharp drops in the spread of the virus.

Despite the end of the mask-wearing mandate outside, citizens must still wear face coverings indoors.

Israeli kindergarteners, elementary and high schools were already open, but Sunday marks the reopening of middle schools.

The environment secretary George Eustice has defended health secretary Matt Hancock over his ownership of shares in a company which was approved as a potential supplier for the NHS.

This week, Hancock came under fire for failing to declare his interest Topwood to parliamentary authorities for more than two months, and never previously mentioning his family’s longstanding involvement with the firm.

Topwood won a tender competition to get approval as a contractor for the NHS in Wales in early 2019. At this time, the firm was owned by Hancock’s sister and other family members.

Speaking on Sky News on Sunday morning, Eustice said there was “nothing wrong with ministers having financial interests and declaring them”.

He said that Hancock’s involvement in Topwood was only public knowledge because he had declared it, and that Hancock had not been involved in any decisions on procurement – removing the conflict of interest.