The latest on the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines

The European Commission has started laying the groundwork for a vaccine passport that could let European Union citizens travel this summer, it announced.

The Commission intends to publish a legislative proposal for vaccine certification by the end of March, Commission chief spokesperson Eric Mamer said.

In January, the European Union and its 27 member states agreed a set of guidelines that would form the basis of the passports, “but the exact information still needs to be determined,” he said.

To avoid discrimination and citizens being turned away at a border, the Commission’s intention is that the passports “would not only state whether or not a person had been vaccinated, but also whether this person has had recent PCR test, or can be deemed Covid immune, for health reasons i.e., antibodies,” Mamer added.

Asked whether the scope of the legal proposal would extend to international travelers traveling into the EU, Mamer said: “We will have to come back to you once the proposal is made, we cannot give details for the moment.” 

Expanding on the details of technical work currently underway to prepare the passports Johannes Bahrke, the EU’s Digital Economy spokesperson said, “It's a question of: how a certificate can be checked, because it's important that they are safe; and how the data is safe; what's the technical standard.”

Bahrke said, “all these kind of details now need to be agreed among member states based on the guidelines that are in place.” 

Speaking following a meeting of European Leaders last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it would be “at least three months” before the passports could be rolled out.

“Member states will need to move fast with the implementation if we want such a green certificate to be in place by summer,” von der Leyen said. “They will have to ensure a quick and complete rollout in the National Health System, and in the border systems."

With a strict, government-imposed lockdown in place, the United Kingdom has seen a continued decline in its Covid-19 cases over the last few weeks.

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab attributes it to the lockdown and the “swift rollout of the vaccines.”

“Over 20 million people now have had their first dose, and that clearly is protecting people, having an impact on transmission. So, of course, there's a long way to go, but the signs, the progress is all positive, and we've got light at the end of the tunnel here,” he told CNN.

Although the country is set to reopen its schools on March 8, it will being back non-essential retail, such as hairdressers, gyms, museums, zoos and theme parks on April 12.

Raab said it’s important to stick to the roadmap, which he called optimistic but cautious.

He added: "We want to know that when we come out of this lock down, we stay out of it.”

Now that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine in the US, the company will deliver 20 million Covid-19 vaccine doses in March and 100 million doses by June, said Dr. Paul Stoffels, the company’s chief scientific officer.

“You can't accelerate it by yelling at it,” he said Monday. “You have to have the cells growing and the viruses extracted and put into vials, and that's what it is.”

Stoffels also confirmed that Johnson & Johnson is “evaluating when we need to have, eventually, a boost on the single dose, which might be six month, 12 months … to keep immunity up.”

 “A booster dose will be needed at a certain point. And so we started to study, with an interim of two months, to get to maximum protection and durability,” he said.

Watch the interview here:

Just three months ago, Finland had Europe's lowest average of Covid-19 infections and deaths per capita, and had managed to contain local outbreaks while sticking to some of the most relaxed restrictions on the continent.

But now it’s facing a new surge -- and the government has changed tack.

On Monday, Finland’s government declared a state of emergency due to a sharp rise in cases that they have attributed partially to the spread of new variants.

The country will go into a three-week lockdown on March 8, according to Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

In a statement, the government said:

The strictest restrictions were already introduced in seven hospital districts last Thursday, including in the capital, Helsinki.

Across the border in Norway, officials are also tightening restrictions due to a surge of cases in the capital that Oslo City Council called "a consequence of the import of mutated variants of the coronavirus."

"This means that we now have to tighten up infection control measures in line with the recommendations of national health authorities.

From Tuesday until March 15, the new measures in Oslo include: the closing of all restaurants, except for take-away services; and shuttering all stores, except pharmacies and grocery/liquor stores.

From Monday, Oslo students attending upper secondary schools will stay at home and on Wednesday, all schools will be run with a combination of traditional and virtual learning.

The council added that is introducing the mass testing of students with saliva samples from March 8, and the increased testing of all teachers.

While much of the world is starting to think about lifting their coronavirus restrictions, the Czech Republic has today entered a strict new lockdown. The Central European nation of 10 million has been experiencing near record levels of new infections and its death toll has just topped 20,000. 

There is no reason for the country to be among the worst hit. As a relatively wealthy nation and a member of the European Union, the Czech Republic has access to vaccines, medical equipment and track-and-trace tech solutions. It has a democratically elected government. Its health care system is well respected, its economy fairly strong.

Instead, the current Czech catastrophe is akin to death by a thousand cuts, a result of dozens of tiny missteps, late decisions and botched public health messages, experts tell CNN.

Read more here about what went wrong in a country that sailed through the pandemic’s first wave nearly unscathed.

RELATED

Analysis: How the Czech Republic slipped into a Covid disaster, one misstep at a time

Health officials in England are still trying to track down one of the UK's six recorded cases of the coronavirus variant first detected in Brazil. 

On Sunday, Public Health England said that six cases of the variant first identified in Manaus, Brazil (known as P.1) have been detected in the UK -- with three of those cases identified in England.

Speaking on Sky News on Monday, UK vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi said that the individual who hadn’t yet been traced hadn’t filled in their test card details, and that they "would probably (have) got a home kit or a test kit from the local authority,” Zahawi said.

The other two cases of the P.1 variant were identified in South Gloucestershire "who have been self-isolating correctly" and there is "minimal reason to believe that there may be further spread," the minister added.

The three other cases of the variant were identified in Scotland and are not linked to the cases in England, the British government said in a statement on Sunday.

Zahawi stressed that the Brazilian variant is a “variant of concern,” adding that “it’s very similar in terms of its mutations to the South African variant. So, it is concerning.”

The variant first seen in South Africa, called B.1.351 or 501Y.V2, has a different pattern of mutations that causes more physical alterations in the structure of the spike protein than the UK variant (B.1.1.7) does.

One important mutation, called E484K, appears to affect the receptor binding domain -- the part of the spike protein most important for attaching to cells, which could help the virus partly escape the effects of vaccines.

The Brazilian variant, P.1, also carries the E484K mutation.

Read more about the variants here:

RELATED

New coronavirus variants keep popping up. Here's what we know about them

More than 70,000 people have died from Covid-19 in Germany, according to official figures.

The country's agency for disease control and prevention, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), on Monday recorded 4,732 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of infections to 2,447,068.

The RKI also reported 60 additional deaths, bringing the total death toll to 70,105. Recorded numbers are always low at weekends because not so many people get tested. 

Meanwhile, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder also warned that new variants of the coronavirus are taking over. 

Soeder also warned there are coronavirus hotspots on the German border with the Czech Republic.

“Corona[virus] will keep us busy in the next few months, make no mistake,” Soeder said. 

The Bavarian leader said more vaccinations and more tests were needed. Soeder also called for general practitioners, as well as company and factory doctors to start giving vaccinations. 

The RKI said Germany's seven-day incidence rate has risen to 65.8 -- representing the number of cases per 100,000 inhabitants. It is aiming to reach an incidence rate of 35 before lifting restrictions.

Soeder was speaking ahead of Wednesday’s meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the prime ministers of the country's federal states, when the next steps of the pandemic restrictions will be discussed.

The United States has reported at least 2,463 cases of coronavirus variants that were first spotted in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The CDC warned that these figures don't represent the total number of such cases circulating nationwide -- just those that have been detected by analyzing positive samples.

The UK variant: The vast majority of these cases, 2,400, are the more contagious variant known as B.1.1.7, which was originally detected in the UK. This variant has been found in 44 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. About a quarter are in Florida.

South Africa variant: There are 53 cases of the B.1.351 variant, first seen in South Africa, reported in 15 states and Washington, DC. 

Brazil variant: Lastly, 10 cases of the P.1 variant first linked to Brazil have been discovered in five US states.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi received his first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, kicking off the second phase of the country's immunization campaign.

He received India's home-grown vaccine, Covaxin, at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi.

The second phase: This next part of the vaccination drive will allow shots for those aged 60 years and older, and those aged above 45 with serious medical conditions.

The first phase had been targeted at healthcare and frontline workers, but vaccines will now available to the general public within the age bracket.

India has distributed more than 14.3 million vaccines since the program began on January 16, according to the Indian Ministry of Health.

The Indian Ministry of Health has recorded more than 11 million cases to date, and more than 157,000 related deaths.