Coronavirus live news: at least 3,000 nurses have died in year since WHO declared Covid pandemic | World news

Austria’s national medicines regulator has suspended use of a batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine after four patients were diagnosed with dangerous blood clotting conditions after receiving the jab, PA reports.

Four other countries – Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia – have suspended its use to allow time for the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) to conduct an investigation.

Europe’s medicines watchdog said a preliminary probe showed that the batch of vaccines used in Austria was not likely to blame for the death of a nurse, aged 49, who received a jab.

The nurse died of multiple thrombosis – formation of blood clots within blood vessels – 10 days after their vaccine, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said.

A second patient was diagnosed with pulmonary embolism – where blockages form in the arteries in the lungs – but is now recovering.

As of Tuesday, two other clotting conditions had been identified in patients that had received a dose from the same batch.

The EMA said there is currently no evidence that the vaccine caused the conditions, and that thrombosis is not listed as a potential side effect of the vaccine.

It said that the batch labelled ABV5300 comprised one million doses and had been delivered to 17 EU countries.

The WHO wants to see healthcare workers in all countries being vaccinated within the first 100 days of 2021.

Catton said that was the start line rather than the finish line, and voiced “grave concerns” at the unequal distribution of vaccines between rich and poor countries.

For nurses, facing an elevated risk of infection, immunisation “is about their right to being protected at work,” he said.

“Not being protected at work adds to their distress.”

Recalling the public appreciation shown towards nurses in the early stages of the pandemic, Catton said that now, “overwhelmingly, nurses would rather be getting their vaccine than a round of applause”.

The ICN strongly recommended that all nurses take a Covid-19 jab.

“It is an issue of protection and safety for patients,” Catton said.

“If somebody doesn’t have the vaccine then it may well be that you have to look at redeploying them to other areas.”

In a report, the International Council of Nurses said the pandemic “could trigger a mass exodus from the profession”, from as early as the second half of 2021. The global nurse shortage could widen to nearly 13 million, it added.

“We could be on a precipice,” said Catton, recalling that it took three to four years of training to produce a novice nurse.

He said nurses had done a “phenomenal” job “to lead the world through this pandemic”, saying they would share an equal platform with the vaccine creators in the eventual history of Covid-19.

But once the pandemic has passed, frazzled nurses will then have to deal with all the unmet healthcare needs and waiting lists, whilst also facing likely staff shortages.

Founded in 1899, the ICN is a federation of more than 130 national nursing associations.

It called for governments to invest in training more new nurses to address the global shortage.

It also called for better pay to encourage existing staff to stay on – to bolster health systems for future crises, if nothing else.

At least 3,000 nurses have been killed by Covid-19, the global nurses’ federation said Thursday as it warned of a looming exodus of health workers traumatised by the pandemic, AFP reports.

Exactly one year on since the World Health Organization (WHO) first described Covid-19 as a pandemic, the International Council of Nurses said burn-out and stress had led millions of nurses to consider quitting the profession.

And once the pandemic is over, a dwindling number of experienced nurses could be left to handle the giant backlog of regular hospital care that had been postponed due to the crisis, the ICN warned.

The known death toll of nurses killed by the disease – compiled from just 60 countries – is likely to be a gross underestimate of the full total, the federation said.

ICN chief executive Howard Catton said nurses had gone through “mass traumatisation” during the pandemic, being pushed to physical and mental exhaustion.

“They reach a point where they’ve given everything they can,” he told reporters.

Catton said the global workforce of 27 million nurses was six million short going into the pandemic – and four million were heading for retirement by 2030.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage, exactly one year since the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, on 11 March 2020 (I am writing from Australia, where it is Thursday, 11 March 2021).

In that year, at least 3,000 nurses have been killed by the virus, the global nurses’ federation said as it warned of a looming exodus of health workers traumatised by the pandemic.

We’ll have more on that shortly. Meanwhile here are the other key recent developments:

• The daily number of new coronavirus cases in Turkey rose on Wednesday to the highest level this year, standing at 14,556, health ministry data showed.
• There is nothing to suggest so far that vaccination was responsible for the death and illness of two people who had been given AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine in Austria, the European Medicines Agency said. Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Latvia have along with Austria suspended using the vaccine to allow time for the EMA’s Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee to conduct an investigation.
• France reported 30,303 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours on Wednesday, rising above 30,000 for the first time in two weeks.
• The Maltese government has ordered non-essential shops and schools to close amid a surge in Covid-19 cases on the Mediterranean island.
• The European commission said on Wednesday it has reached a deal with Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of an additional 4m Covid vaccine doses to be delivered this month.
• The highly infectious British variant of Covid-19 is between 30% and 100% more deadly than previous strains, researchers have said.
• Poland has reported 17,260 new daily Covid cases, the highest number since November.
• Mauritius has started a two-week nationwide lockdown following 14 local Covid cases, with all residents and visitors asked to stay at home or in their hotels until 25 March.
• Far more people in Germany will receive a Covid vaccination from April when family doctors start giving them but the idea that 25% of the population can get a shot in just a month is unrealistic, its health minister warned on Wednesday.
• Bulgaria has reported 3,502 new Covid cases, its highest daily tally in three months, as government data shows the number of deaths also increased to 132.