Coronavirus live news: Tokyo plans to lift emergency before Olympics; Germany’s CureVac jab shows 47% efficacy

German biotech CureVac NV said on Wednesday its Covid-19 vaccine was only 47% effective in a late-stage trial, missing the study’s main goal and throwing in doubt the potential delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to the European Union, Reuters reports.

The disappointing efficacy of the shot known as CVnCoV emerged from an interim analysis based on 134 Covid-19 cases in the study with about 40,000 volunteers in Europe and Latin America.

The stakes for CureVac and prospective buyers of its vaccine in Europe had risen after age limits were imposed on the use of the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines due to a link to extremely rare but potentially fatal clotting disorders.

CureVac’s shot was also expected to help in low and middle-income countries that have lagged far behind richer nations in the global immunisation drive.

As CureVac’s only major supply deals, the European Union in November secured up to 405 million doses of the vaccine, of which 180 million are optional. That was followed by a memorandum of understanding with Germany for another 20 million doses.

CureVac’s US traded shares fell 50.6% to $46.81 in after-hours trading following publication of the data.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.

Japan plans to lift Tokyo’s virus emergency on June 20, a month before the Olympics, the government announced Thursday as reports said only 10,000 spectators would be allowed at Games events.

Meanwhile German biotech CureVac NV said on Wednesday its Covid-19 vaccine showed just 47% efficacy in a late-stage trial, missing the study’s main goal and throwing in doubt the potential delivery of hundreds of millions of doses to the European Union.

Here are the key recent developments:

• MPs in England voted 461 to 60 to approve regulations that delay the easing of coronavirus restrictions in England to 19 July.
• South Africa’s Covid-19 infections jumped by 13,246 on Wednesday, the highest daily total in five months, its government said.
• US president Joe Biden said China was trying to project itself as a responsible nation in regard to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it remained unclear whether Beijing was really trying to understand the origins of the coronavirus.
• Johnson & Johnson is expected to miss its Covid vaccine supply target to the EU for the second quarter after millions of doses were banned for use in Europe over safety concerns, according to the European Commission.
• France and Spain are moving to ease rules around wearing face masks outside, in a development attributed by both countries to their Covid-19 vaccination campaigns.
• Australia’s second largest city will allow its five millions residents to travel more than 15 miles from home and end mandatory masks wearing outdoors from Friday.
• Ursula von der Leyen signed off on the first plans by EU member states to spend Brussels’ €800bn (£687bn) Covid recovery fund, as she sought to reverse the reputational damage inflicted on the bloc by the pandemic during a visit to Portugal and Spain.
• All care home staff in England will need to be fully vaccinated against coronavirus under a controversial new law, the government announced.
• Codogno, the town where the first domestic transmission of Covid-19 was detected in Italy, has registered zero infections among its inhabitants for the first time since February 2020.
• Companies in Germany will from the end of June no longer be forced to allow working from home, chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff was quoted as saying.
• The Taj Mahal reopened to the public as India pushes to lift restrictions in a bid to revitalise its economy.