January 25 coronavirus news

Pharmaceutical giant Merck announced Monday it is discontinuing development of its Covid-19 vaccine candidates, after early studies showed immune responses were inferior to natural infection and other Covid-19 vaccines.

Merck said it plans to submit results from Phase 1 trials of its vaccine candidates, known as V590 and V591, for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Two Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna have already been authorized for emergency use in the United States by the US Food and Drug Administration; both are about 95% effective after two doses.

Japanese police reported an increased number of people who died at home from Covid-19 in January and December, according public broadcaster NHK.  

NHK reports the National Police Agency confirmed 75 deaths between January 1 and January 20 and 56 deaths in the month of December. In total, it has recorded 197 deaths at home since March 2020.

The broadcaster says many cases of infection were only confirmed in post-mortem examination and that people could not be seen swiftly by doctors despite falling ill.

Some background: To date, Japan has reported more than 368,000 coronavirus cases, according to the tally from Johns Hopkins University.

Earlier this month, the country expanded its state of emergency in several prefectures and banned all foreign nationals from entering the country.

The state of emergency orders companies to encourage their staff to work from home and reduce office populations by 70%. Residents of the affected areas are also urged to avoid non-essential outings and restaurants have to stop serving alcohol by 7 p.m. and close by 8 p.m. Sports and entertainment events in Japan are also requested to limit the number of attendees.

German health ministry spokesman Hanno Kautz said he expects the European Union to approve the AstraZeneca Covid-19 shot this Friday.

The vaccine -- which has already been approved for emergency use in the UK -- has been under review by the European Medicines Agency since January 12. The bloc has already fast-tracked the reviews for the Pfizer/BioNTech shot as well as the Moderna vaccine and both have been authorized for use.

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke to AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot on Monday morning over the phone and "made it clear that she expects AstraZeneca to deliver on the contractual arrangements foreseen in the advance purchasing agreement," EU Commission chief spokesperson Eric Mamer said.

The conversation between the two comes after the EU expressed its “deep dissatisfaction” on Friday, after being informed by AstraZeneca that vaccine deliveries to member states -- pending authorization -- would not arrive before the end of the first quarter of 2021, as originally forecast.

"Of course, production issues can appear with a complex vaccine but we expect the company to find solutions and to exploit all possible flexibilities to deliver swiftly," Mamer added.

Separately EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides sent a letter to AstraZeneca Sunday "to request further clarifications" over the shortfall of its deliveries, EU spokesperson Stefan de Keersmaecker said Monday.

“In this letter the Commissioner stresses the importance of deliveries in line with the schedules laid down in the agreement, and she reiterated that the scaling up of the production capacity has to happen concurrently with the conduct of clinical trials to ensure the availability of vaccines as quickly as possible. This is really important premise of the contract," de Keersmaecker added.

Google Maps are set to roll out a new feature, beginning in four US states, that displays locations offering Covid-19 vaccinations, the company announced on Monday.

Google (GOOGL) announced the feature would roll out in the coming weeks in Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. They added that since the beginning of the year the search for “vaccines near me” have increased five fold and was introducing this feature to ensure it provides “locally relevant answers.”

The results will be shown in designated panels in search results about if an appointment is required, if the vaccine available to certain groups only and if there is a drive-thru.

Google said it's working with "authoritative sources" for the information, including local governments and retail pharmacies.

It's the latest change to Google Maps in relation to the pandemic. In September, the Maps app began displaying seven-day averages of new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people.

The company intends to roll out information about vaccine sites to other states and countries at a later point.

Read the full story here:

RELATED

Google Maps will soon display Covid-19 vaccination sites

British lawmakers are calling on the country's government to set out a “route map” for the reopening of schools, amid media reports that students might not return to in-person teaching until after the Easter holidays.

Chairman of the education select committee, Conservative MP Robert Halfon, tweeted Sunday that he had asked to table an urgent question on the matter in Parliament.

“Given media speculation on schools no longer opening post Feb half-term, I've written to Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to ask for House of Commons Urgent Question to get clarity,” Halfon added. 

“We know the significant damage this is doing to children in terms of mental health, educational attainment, safeguarding hazards and their general wellbeing,” Halfon said in an interview with Sky News on Monday. 

He said he’d like a plan for support staff and teachers to be given the vaccination as a priority after the clinically vulnerable. He added he was not a lockdown skeptic but worried hugely about the effects of school closures on children. 

Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey told BBC Breakfast she was “not aware of any decisions being made yet” over when schools would reopen.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, also called for a government plan on schools, including which children could be brought back first and when, in an interview with BBC News on Monday. He asked whether there could be a rota system in place and said the “sense of a plan would give a reassurance for parents.”

Writing in the Daily Mail newspaper on Monday, UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: “The last thing any parent wanted was to see schools closing to most pupils -- as they had to at the start of this month.” On returning to classrooms, he said “as soon as Covid infection rates are back under control then we will get them back there as quickly as we can”.

It comes as other Conservative MPs, such as Esther McVey, are backing a campaign to reopen schools. McVey tweeted Sunday: "Schools need to reopen for the child’s best interest and for families too. If vaccinating teachers, after the most vulnerable in society, removes the barriers to reopening schools then we should do it. You can’t close schools and not have a workable alternative."

Schools in England have been closed to all students expect for children of key workers and vulnerable pupils since the start of a national lockdown on January 5.

Read more on what history can tell us about the long-term effects of disruptions to education:

RELATED

How will school closures affect children in the long run? Wars, disease and natural disasters offer clues

Austria became the latest European country to make medical-grade face masks mandatory in some public places on Monday.

People must now switch their face coverings to FFP2 filtering facepiece respirators or N95 masks when traveling on public transport as well as when visiting shops, markets or when picking up takeaway food from restaurants.

The new mask mandate is for all individuals aged 14 and over, the Austrian Health Ministry website said. Children from the age of six can instead wear a mouth and nose covering, while children below six are exempt from mask use.

Some context: France and Germany introduced similar measures in public spaces last week.

France’s Health Minister Olivier Veran on Tuesday said homemade masks were made with the best intentions but "do not necessarily offer all the necessary guarantees."

A few days later, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cited the spread of new coronavirus variants, which were first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, as the reason for stricter requirements in the country. "I urge people to take this seriously. Otherwise it is difficult to prevent a third wave," Merkel told journalists in Berlin on Thursday.

Austria has reported a total of 398,399 Covid-19 cases as of Monday, according to data from the country’s health ministry. 

Read more on European countries revising their mask regulations here:

RELATED

European countries mandate medical-grade masks over cloth face coverings

Pfizer Korea has applied for approval of its vaccine developed with BioNTech in South Korea, the country’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Monday.

The ministry aims to review the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine within 40 days, and quality assurance certification within 20 days.

South Korea plans to import 10 million doses of the vaccine and reported last month it was working to move up delivery to the second quarter of the year.

AstraZeneca applied for approval of its vaccine in South Korea earlier this month.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has condemned the violence of anti-lockdown demonstrators, saying their behavior was “unacceptable.”

On Sunday, police and protesters clashed during a demonstration against Covid-19 restrictions in central Amsterdam, where more than 240 arrests were made, according to Reuters.

Police used water cannon, dogs and riot police on horseback to disperse the protesters.

According to NOS, riot police were deployed in at least 10 cities and towns after a new nightly curfew came into effect on Saturday night. Vehicles were set alight, police had stones thrown at them and public property was destroyed.

Rutte added that 99% of people in the country are sticking to the curfew.

Since mid-December, schools and non-essential shops have been shut in the Netherlands. There have been more than 13,600 coronavirus-related deaths and more than 962,000 infections in the country so far, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Some background:

Israel’s main international airport will be almost completely shuttered for the next week, after the government banned all incoming flights by non-Israeli airlines, in an effort to stop the entry into the country of new variants of the coronavirus. 

The measures came into effect at midnight and will last until January 31, according to a joint statement from the Prime Minister’s Office and the Health Ministry Sunday. 

Israeli carriers are also facing “temporary restrictions” on their operating licenses, meaning they are also expected to cancel all flights, with exceptions permitted on departing flights if they are for medical treatment, legal proceedings that require participation, or to allow for attendance at the funeral of a relative. 

Foreign carriers are now only be allowed to land in Israel if the flight is a medical emergency evacuation or a cargo plane.