COVID-19: PM Boris Johnson to give update amid India variant fears, as WHO says 2nd year will be worse
Prime Minister Boris Johnson will hold a coronavirus briefing from Downing Street at 17:00 BST. The PM will be joined by England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty.
They are expected to be addressing the growing concerns over the Indian variant after the UK cases more than doubled in a week to 1,313.
Vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi says the programme can be flexed, with more doses for affected areas. The second dose could be brought forward to help fight that Indian variant in the UK’s worst-affected areas.
WHO warning
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said wealthy countries should reconsider plans to vaccinate children and instead donate the vaccines to the international Covax scheme for poorer countries.
WHO chief told a virtual meeting that the second year of the pandemic was set to be more deadly than the first with the situation in India being a massive concern.
Dr Tedros said:
“I understand why some countries want to vaccinate their children and adolescents, but right now I urge them to reconsider and to instead donate vaccines to Covax.”
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