Covid news live: Australia sends vaccines to Antarctica; South Korea eases restrictions in step towards ‘normal life’

Australia’s vaccination campaign has taken an icy trip to the shores of the Antarctic.

An Airbus A319 arrived in Wilkins Aerodrome on Thursday evening with a cargo of Pfizer vaccines for 27 expeditioners at the Casey research station, minister for the environment Sussan Ley said in a press release on Friday.

“The exercise was a reminder of the isolation Australia’s Antarctic Expeditioners face each year and the detailed planning that is in place to support their well-being,” Ley said.

“As the Antarctic season looms and as expeditioners prepare to head home, it is important that they can join the national surge in Covid-19 vaccinations.”

Ley said the delivery required “months of careful planning” and the vaccines had to be stored at the right temperature from their arrival in Hobart, their delivery to the plane, the flight to Antarctica and then the four-hour journey across the ice to the station in a frozen container.

A syringe shortfall threatens Africa Covid vaccine drive as the continent struggles to inoculate people against the virus.

The United Nation’s fund for children (UNICEF) is predicting an “imminent shortfall” of up to 2.2 billion of the single-use syringes for Covid vaccination.

“Limited access to crucial commodities such as syringes may slow the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines in Africa,” WHO Africa said, referencing UNICEF’s dire prediction.

“Early next year, Covid-19 vaccines will start pouring into Africa, but a scarcity of syringes could paralyse progress,” Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said.

“Drastic measures must be taken to boost syringe production, fast.”

Unless there is a significant acceleration, only five African countries, or below 10 percent, will reach the target of 40 percent of populations vaccinated by the end of the year, the WHO said.

These countries – Seychelles, Mauritius, Morocco, which have already reached this target, as well as Tunisia and Cape Verde – together account for just 51 million of the continent’s 1.2 billion population.

Hi and welcome back to our daily Covid blog.

I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you the top headlines from across the world.

First up, it’s good news for a group of researchers working from Australia’s Casey Station in Antarctica today.

Pfizer vaccines have finally arrived for 27 staff, federal environment minister Sussan Ley announced on Friday. Vaccines will also be delivered to its Davis and Mawson research stations.

Officials in South Korea have also announced restrictions will begin to ease from next week.

“Beginning November 1, our community will take the first step of resuming our normal life,” Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said. “However, we must be aware that this doesn’t mean the fight against coronavirus is over, but a new beginning.”

Here’s a rundown of what else you might have missed.

• A syringe shortfall threatens Africa’s Covid vaccine drive. As vaccines arrive to the continent, a scarcity of syringes could “paralyse progress”, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. UNICEF, the United Nation’s fund for children, is predicting an “imminent shortfall” of up to 2.2 billion of the single-use syringes used to give jabs.
• New Zealand records another 125 Covid cases, pushing the country’s Delta outbreak past 3,000.
• The US economy grew at its slowest pace in more than a year in the third quarter as a resurgence in Covid cases further stretched global supply chains, leading to shortages and decreased consumer spending, Reuters reports.
• Russia sets more Covid restrictions amid record deaths and vaccine hesitancy. Recent rampant outbreaks in the countries have been driven by low vaccination rates.
• Britain has reported 39,842 new cases of Covid, government data showed on Thursday. A further 165 people were reported as having died within 28 days of a positive test for Covid, meaning the seven-day total was up 16.2% from the previous week.
• More than 100 million Indians have not turned up for their second coronavirus vaccine dose, official data showed, raising concerns of a resurgence in the disease despite a relatively low infection rate.
• Only five African countries will meet the target of fully vaccinating 40% of their populations against Covid unless the pace of inoculations increases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.
• Singapore reported 3,432 new cases of Covid on Thursday, a day after recording its highest single-day rise in cases which the city-state’s healthy ministry described as an “unusual surge”.
• Pfizer and BioNTech have announced that they expect to deliver 50m more doses of their Covid vaccine to the United States by the end of April.
• Airlines cast doubt on flying unvaccinated passengers to Australia.
• England set to remove final countries from Covid travel ‘red list’. At least 12 more countries’ vaccines also expected to be recognised in significant opening up of borders.
• Face mask row in Japan over cost of 80m left in storage unused. Wearing masks may be near-ubiquitous in Japan, but the government has come under fire after it was revealed that more than 80m face coverings it procured at the start of the coronavirus pandemic are still in storage, at a huge cost to taxpayers.