Coronavirus news – live: UK’s vaccine passport to use NHS app, as India surge threatens ‘humanitarian crisis’

The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) has extended its coronavirus appeal to include India in order to provide aid and medical supplies to the country as it faces a devastating second wave of the virus.

The DEC said its member charities, including the British Red Cross, ActionAid UK and Save the Children UK, would offer support including by providing ventilators and setting up temporary Covid hospitals and care centres.

DEC chief executive Saleh Saeed said: “We have all seen the devastating images from India showing hospitals overrun and oxygen supplies falling short of demand, with thousands of people unable to receive potentially life-saving treatment.

“Several cities have imposed lockdowns and curfews, which will have a knock-on effect for people’s livelihoods, with the poorest and most marginalised communities hit hardest.

“DEC member charities have a long history of working with these communities and are supporting overwhelmed health services by providing medical supplies, treatment facilities and logistics assistance. With the generous support of the UK public, we can do even more to help the most vulnerable communities as they face a life-or-death situation.”

Before adding India to the list, the DEC had been funding Afghanistan, DR Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen and the Rohingya refugee camps through its coronavirus appeal.

Sainsbury’s saw a £261m loss in the year since coronavirus arrived despite a strong boost in sales.

Sales in the 12 months to 6 March jumped 7.8 per cent, including an 8.3 per cent rise in non-food business as shoppers were unable to head to non-essential retailers for large parts of the year.

But £485m in Covid-related costs and a major restructuring that saw around 1,150 jobs affected, sent the business to a £261m loss for the year.

Sainsbury’s grocery sales were up 7.8 per cent, helped by a 120 per cent rise in online orders.

At the company’s Argos business, sales jumped 10.9 per cent, including a 68 per cent rise in digital sales.

Chief executive Mr Roberts revealed that despite the high Covid-19 costs, the supermarket will still pay out a dividend to investors of 7.4p a share, up from 7.3p a share a year ago.

Matt Hancock has been invited to book a coronavirus vaccination appointment, the health secretary announced on Twitter.

Mr Hancock used the announcement to adapt his “when you get the call, get the jab” line into “I got the call, I’m getting the jab”.

Vaccination is now being offered to people aged 42 and over.

There have been a further 35 cases of Covid-19 in Wales, bringing the total to 211,389, according to the latest Public Health Wales data.

No deaths were reported, leaving the total at 5,548.

The number of new cases is down from 64 last Wednesday, when there were also no new deaths.

Some parts of the UK have seen a rise in coronavirus case rates days after the ONS reported a decrease across three of the four nations.

Check this map below, compiled by The Independent, to find the case data for your area:

The surge in Covid-19 cases in India will soon create a “humanitarian crisis” with people “dying at numbers we probably have never imagined”, a doctor with family in Delhi said.

Dr Meenal Viz said Delhi was one of the “worst-hit places at the moment” as she highlighted the need to deliver the vaccine to developing countries and work together to “help communities and societies”.

“I was reading a few days ago that a lot of companies don’t want to sell the [vaccine] patent in developing countries, because of the business side of things, but it’s actually our duty now as doctors and as scientists,” she told PA.

“We’re not just here to take care of patients, we’re here to help communities and societies come back from this really tragic year.

“There’s a damage that can’t be undone. We really need to think of the next few months, and I feel like a lot of leaders have failed to do that.”

Further testing is being carried out at a school in Leicester after three cases of the Indian variant of Covid-19 were found.

Leicester City Council said the cases were linked to travel from the country prior to it being placed on the government’s red list on Friday.

The city’s director of public health, Professor Ivan Browne, said they require investigation and follow-up.

The council said further testing at the unnamed city school is a precautionary measure, and surge testing of communities is not currently required as the cases are all linked to travel.

Women are at no greater risk from blood clots after receiving the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, despite seeing a higher number of reported cases and deaths, the Science and Technology Committee of MPs heard.

Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed, chair of the Commission on Human Medicines, told MPs: “There are two things to consider – the first is the way the vaccine was deployed, particularly in healthcare workers and social care workers.

“The majority of the workforce there is female and so they had higher exposure rates.

“But when you then start relating to the exposure rate in different populations, what you find is that the case incidence rate between male and female is actually very similar.

“So, from our data that we’ve got in the UK, it doesn’t look as if the females are at a higher risk of this adverse event compared to males.”

He added that having a history of thrombosis was not seen as a risk factor.

Sir Munir continued: “The only risk factor that we are finding is age in that there is a slightly higher risk in the younger age group compared to the older age group.”

An estimated 7 in 10 adults in England would have tested positive for Covid antibodies – suggesting they had been vaccinated or had the virus in the past – in the week ending 11 April, according to the ONS.

In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, the estimate was that 6 in 10 adults had antibodies by the same week.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said the statistics were “very encouraging” and encouraged people to get vaccinated when asked.

Children hospitalised with coronavirus could suffer long Covid symptoms such as fatigue and loss of smell for months afterwards, according to a study.

Researchers arranged follow-up interviews with the parents of 518 children admitted with suspected or confirmed Covid-19 to ZA Bashlyaeva Children’s Municipal Clinical Hospital in Moscow, Russia, between April and August 2020.

They discovered one-quarter of the children had persistent symptoms several months after returning home, with almost one in 10 experiencing “multi-system involvement”.

Parents of some participants also reported emotional and behavioural changes in their children after Covid-19.

Full report from Chiara Giordano here: