The government faces an "increasingly risky" situation as debt has soared and the cost of Covid mounts, the fiscal watchdog says. The Office for Budgetary Responsibility said government debt now stood at some £2.2 trillion or 99.2% of GDP -...
The public will accept a delay to the 21 June ending of all Covid rules to avoid a damaging “yo-yo” of restrictions, Dominic Raab says – as thousands of weddings and other public events face cancellation. Pressure is growing on ministers to postpone the...
A Belgian judge has begun hearing an urgent European Commission request for a court order requiring AstraZeneca to deliver millions more vaccines to the bloc, in a case that may reflect the EU’s anger more than its need for doses. The court,...
Africa now has the highest death rate in the world among adults who become critically ill after contracting Covid-19, according to new data. The African Covid-19 Critical Care Outcomes Study (ACCCOS) published in The Lancet observed 64 hospitals across 10 African countries between May and...
A rapid rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine across the UK’s four nations lifted GDP by 2.1% in March, helping prevent a steep fall during the first three months of the year, according to official figures. The economy retreated by a better...
At least 90 more bodies of suspected Covid-19 victims have washed up in rivers in India, as the virus continues to spread into poor rural areas and the country recorded its highest daily death toll so far. More than 70 corpses...
Shares in pharmaceutical companies fell sharply after the US government threw its weight behind global plans for a patent waiver on Covid-19 vaccines to boost their production and distribution around the world. Shortly after the US declared its support for the intellectual property (IP) waiver, which...
Nepal is struggling to contain an explosion in Covid-19 cases, as fears grow that the situation in the Himalayan country may be as bad, if not worse, than in neighbouring India, with which it shares a long and porous border. Following...
European leaders are lifting restrictions across a lockdown-weary bloc as they take what Italy’s prime minister, Mario Draghi, has admitted is a “calculated risk” that accelerating vaccination campaigns will keep stubbornly high infection rates in check. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, will...
India has suffered its worst day yet of the pandemic, as both new Covid-19 cases and deaths broke previous records and crematoriums in Delhi became so overloaded with bodies that they are being forced to build makeshift funeral pyres on spare...
