Coronavirus live news: India offers vaccination to all adults as country nears 20m cases

The White House says the US trade representative will begin talks with the World Trade Organization on ways to overcome intellectual property issues that are keeping critically needed Covid vaccines from being more widely distributed.

The White House has been under intense pressure to join an effort to help waive patent rules for the vaccines so that poorer countries can begin to make their own generic versions.

White House chief of staff Ron Klain said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that US Trade Representative Katherine Tai will be starting talks “on how we can get this vaccine more widely distributed, more widely licensed, more widely shared.”

Klain and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the administration would have more to say on the matter in the coming days.

India has opened vaccinations to all adults in hopes of taming a monstrous spike in Covid infections.

The world’s largest maker of vaccines is still short of critical supplies — the result of lagging manufacturing and raw material shortages. Those factors delayed the rollout in several states.

Only a fraction of India’s population likely can afford the prices charged by private hospitals for the shot. That means states and the federal government will be in charge of immunising 900 million Indian adults.

India’s case total stands at 19.57m according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker, with 215,542 deaths recorded. We should have Monday’s daily figures shortly.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.

As always, you can get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

As India nears 20m coronavirus cases, the country has opened vaccinations to all adults in hopes of taming a monstrous spike in infections.

The world’s largest maker of vaccines is still short of critical supplies — the result of lagging manufacturing and raw material shortages. Those factors delayed the rollout in several states.

Here are the other key developments from the last few hours:

• Britain will send another 1,000 ventilators to India, the government announced on Sunday, stepping up its support as India’s healthcare system struggles to cope with the surge of positive Covid-19 cases.
• Saudi Arabia to open land, sea, and air borders as of 17 May, the interior minister announces on Twitter.
• Oman to ban the movement of people and vehicles from 7 pm to 4 am from May 8 to May 15, the state news agency said.
• South Africa to get the first delivery of its 4.5 million Pfizer coronavirus vaccines as the country begins to increase its vaccination efforts.
• The English city of Liverpool hosted a one-off music festival to test whether significant events spread Covid-19. Nearly 5,000 people took off their masks and ditched social distancing rules in the name of science and music.
• A maximum of 1,000 fans will be allowed on-court at Roland Garros this year, with capacity capped at 35%.
• India recorded a number of deaths on Sunday. New coronavirus cases fell slightly on Sunday but deaths due to the infection jumped by a record 3,689, with one more state going into lockdown as the nation’s healthcare system struggles to cope with a massive caseload.
• Secondary school pupils in England will be offered Covid-19 vaccinations from September under plans being developed by the NHS, according to The Sunday Times.It reports that “core planning scenario” documents compiled by NHS officials include the offer of a single dose of the Pfizer jab to children aged 12 and over when the new school year starts.
• A major new pilot scheme could see the end of people in England having to self-isolate if they have been in contact with someone who has Covid. The government-backed research will trial giving people daily lateral flow tests for seven days instead of asking people quarantine for 10 days.
• Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has urged the British public to keep their resolve for the “last lap” of the fight against coronavirus, saying there is only “a little bit more time” until all legal restrictions on social interaction are removed.
• Campaigners call for urgent action to prevent oxygen shortage in Covid-hit countries. They warn that scenes in India of families desperately searching for oxygen for critically ill Covid patients will be repeated in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and other countries in Africa and around the world unless a significant international effort is made to ensure all countries have good oxygen supplies.
• A total of 41,730,517 Covid-19 vaccinations took place in England between December 8 and May 1, according to NHS England data, including first and second doses, which is a rise of 452,789 on the previous day.