Russia boasted last year of being first in the world to authorize a coronavirus vaccine, but it now finds itself lagging in getting its population immunized. That has cast doubt on whether authorities will reach their ambitious goal of vaccinating more than 30 million of country’s 146 million people by mid-June and nearly 69 million by August.

Daria Litinova reports for Associated Press that the vaccine reluctance comes as shots are readily available in Moscow to anyone 18 or older at more than 200 state and private clinics, shopping malls, food courts, hospitals

As of mid-April, over 1 million of Moscow’s 12.7 million residents, or about 8%, have received at least one shot. That percentage is similar for Russia as a whole, putting Russia far behind the US, where 43% have had at least one shot, and the European Union with nearly 27%.

Data analyst Alexander Dragan, who tracks vaccinations across Russia, said last week the country was giving shots to 200,000-205,000 people a day. In order to hit the mid-June target, it needs to be nearly double that. “We need to start vaccinating 370,000 people a day, like, beginning tomorrow,” Dragan said.

Russia’s lagging vaccination rates hinge on several factors, including supply. Russian drug makers have been slow to ramp up mass production, and there were shortages in March in many regions. So far, only 28 million two-dose sets of the three vaccines available in Russia have been produced

To boost demand, Moscow officials began offering coupons worth 1,000 rubles (£9.50) to those over 60 who get vaccinated — not a small sum for those receiving monthly pensions of about 20,000 rubles.

Still, it hasn’t generated much enthusiasm. Some elderly Muscovites told AP it was difficult to register online for the coupons or find grocery stores that accepted them.

Other regions also are offering incentives. Authorities in Chukotka, across the Bering Strait from Alaska, promised seniors 2,000 rubles for getting vaccinated, while the neighboring Magadan region offered 1,000 rubles. A theatre in St. Petersburg offered discounted tickets for those presenting a vaccination certificate.

Government statistics say Covid infections in Russia have stayed at about 8,000-9,000 per day nationwide, with 300-400 deaths recorded daily. But new cases have been steadily increasing in Moscow in the past month, exceeding 3,000 last week for the first time since January.

Infection rates are growing in seven regions, deputy prime minister Tatyana Golikova said on 23 April, without identifying them. She blamed “insufficient vaccination rates” in some places.

If you’ve got any questions about the travel ban that Australia has imposed on people – including its own citizens and permanent residents – from coming back to the country from India, then Paul Karp has you covered with this Q&A…

Malaysia will begin a parallel Covid-19 innoculation programme this week for people who chose to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine, after it was removed from an ongoing rollout due to public fears over its safety, report Reuters.

Malaysia, which received its first 268,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses in April, said it would allow people to choose to receive the jab on a first-come, first-serve basis. Reports of possible links to very rare blood clots have dented confidence.

The decision was made after around 8,000 people cancelled online vaccination registrations following the government’s announcement that the shot would be part of the nationwide rollout, science minister Khairy Jamaludin told reporters.
Data also showed increased vaccine hesitancy with some people not showing up to appointments after AstraZeneca was included, he said.

“The number of cancellations was rising, and this resulted in (authorities) deciding that we should carve out AstraZeneca from the mainstream national immunisation programme,” Khairy said.

Slots for 268,000 doses were filled in just three hours after bookings opened on Sunday, he said, adding the programme that starts on Wednesday would be expanded when more doses arrive. Malaysia is due to receive 12.8 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, with the next shipment of 1.1 million doses expected to arrive this month.

AstraZeneca has pointed to regulator recommendations that the vaccine is safe and effective, though some countries have suspended its use due to rising unease or limited it to certain age groups.

British finance minister, Chancellor Rishi Sunak, has intervened in the campaigning in Scotland ahead of Thursday’s national election, and has said that a possible future referendum on Scottish independence would put Britain’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic at risk.

Sunak stressed the need to finish dealing with Covid-19 and start rebuilding the economy, ahead of any further moves towards Scottish independence.

“There is one clear risk to this shared goal, and that is the uncertainty of a second independence referendum,” he said in a statement distributed by the Scottish Conservative Party. “It would needlessly divide our country and at the worst possible time.”

The European commission has recommended that foreign citizens fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and those coming from countries with a good epidemiological situation be allowed to travel into European Union countries without additional restrictions, report Reuters.

“The commission proposes to allow entry to the EU for non-essential reasons not only for all persons coming from countries with a good epidemiological situation but also all people who have received the last recommended dose of an EU-authorised vaccine,” the executive arm said in a statement.

“This could be extended to vaccines having completed the WHO emergency use listing process. In addition, the commission proposes to raise … the threshold related to the number of new Covid-19 cases used to determine a list of countries from which all travel should be permitted,” it also said, adding that should lead to the expansion of the list.

Our Brussels bureau chief Daniel Boffey explains that the proposal is to increase the threshold of 14-day cumulative Covid-19 case notification rate from 25 to 100. This remains considerably below the current EU average, which is over 420. The UK is comfortably within that range, which should mean good news for those wishing to holiday in Europe.

Lawyers expect that a legal case challenging Australia’s India travel ban could be filed within days, despite the federal health minister, Greg Hunt, saying it was his “absolute belief” the measure was lawful.

Hunt announced a potential five-year jail term and $66,000 fine late on Friday, in a dramatic escalation of the flight bans implemented a week earlier.

Marque Lawyers’ managing principal, Michael Bradley, told Guardian Australia his firm was “actively looking into” a legal challenge and he considered the prospect of a court case over the India travel ban “pretty likely”.

Bradley said Marque had been approached by an Indian Australia family with the parents currently in Australia and grandparents who had taken their three-year-old grandchild to India for a visit in February 2020 before Australia insisted citizens and permanent residents return home in March 2020. They are now unable to return.

Bradley said the fact the determination expires on 15 May and could be revoked adds a degree of urgency.

The Grata Fund, which supports public interest litigation, has also been contacted about mounting a legal challenge to the ban.

“There is an enormous amount of distress about the Morrison government’s India travel ban in our community,” Isabelle Reinecke, the fund’s founder and executive director, said.

“We’ve received a lot of inquiries about potential legal challenges over the weekend, which we’re working through now.”

Read more of Nino Bucci and Paul Karp’s report here: Legal challenges loom after Australian government bans citizens returning from India

The latest Agence France-Press round-up from India includes a stark reminder of the crisis engulfing the country’s healthcare system.

Press reports and sources have said that twenty-four people died in one hospital overnight on Sunday in the southern state of Karnataka after the hospital ran out of oxygen, though the district administration denied that shortages had caused the deaths.

A further 12 people died on Saturday in a hospital in the capital New Delhi after it ran out of oxygen, reports said.

Several hospitals sent out desperate appeals for oxygen on social media overnight, with deliveries arriving only in the nick of time.

One children’s clinic in Delhi raised the alarm on Twitter over a shortage of oxygen that has reportedly left about 25 to 30 newborns and children at risk.

“Oxygen is a basic requirement of a hospital and a consistent supply has not been assured. We are constantly firefighting,” the head of the Madhukar Rainbow Children’s Hospital Dr Dinesh told the Indian Express daily.

Adding to the pressure on prime minister Narendra Modi, India’s Supreme Court on Sunday ordered the government to rectify the oxygen situation in Delhi by midnight (1830 GMT) on Monday.

It is a bank holiday in the UK, but that does not mean there isn’t any news about banks. Holly Williams, PA Media’s deputy City editor reports that the Bank of England is set to hike its forecasts for the UK economy on Thursday as the vaccination programme and easing of lockdown help boost Britain’s recovery.

Policymakers at the Bank are expected to “significantly” upgrade their growth outlook as they keep interest rates on hold at 0.1%, according to experts.

While the latest lockdown is predicted to see gross domestic product fall once more between January and March, it is thought the hit will be far less than first feared as the economy becomes increasingly resilient.

GDP rose 0.4% in February, after a 2.2% fall in January, even though England was still in full lockdown. Economists also believe the economy has already got off to a strong start in the second quarter as non-essential shops and outdoor dining reopened in England on 12 April, and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also saw some easing of Covid restrictions.

There’s been some fierce criticism of the continuation of the Indian Premier League cricket while India has been reporting more than 300,000 new coronavirus cases for twelve straight days. Tonight’s game, scheduled to take place in Ahmedabad between the Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders, has been postponed.

The cricket website ESPNcricinfo has stated that the players, Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier, tested positive after Chakravarthy recently left the IPL bio-bubble through the official green channel to carry out a scan on his shoulder at a hospital where he might have got exposed.

The IPL confirmed these developments to ESPNcricinfo, stating: “Knight Riders have now moved towards a daily testing routine to identify any other possible cases” and that its “medical team is also determining the close and casual contacts of the two positive cases during the 48 hours” prior to testing.

US president Joe Biden has said in a video address at an event called Vax Live that the US was “working with leaders around the world to share more vaccines and boost production to make sure every country has the vaccines they need”.

Global Citizen Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World, was a charity performance taped last night in aid of the international Covid vaccination effort. It will be broadcast this Saturday, and was held in Los Angeles in front of a fullyvaccinated crowd.

Biden and first lady Dr Jill Biden made their appearance through Global Citizen’s partnership with the White House’s We Can Do This initiative, which encourages measures including mask-wearing. Trevor Marshallsea reports for PA Media that messages about vaccine equity were also heard from guests including Ben Affleck, David Letterman, Gayle King, Jimmy Kimmel and Sean Penn.

Prince Harry also appeared at the event – he and his wife are campaign chairs.

In his first public appearance since the funeral of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, Harry praised the world’s frontline medical workers.

“Tonight is a celebration of each of you here, the vaccinated frontline workers in the audience and the millions of frontline heroes around the world,” Harry said.

“You spent the last year battling courageously and selflessly to protect us all. You served and sacrificed, put yourselves in harm’s way, and acted with bravery, knowing the costs. We owe you an incredible debt of gratitude. Thank you.”

Hosted by Selena Gomez, the concert featured musical performances by Jennifer Lopez, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Foo Fighters, J Balvin and HER.

The event raised $53.8m (£38.8m) for Covax, which is working to provide vaccines for low and middle-income countries. Organisers said it was enough to help purchase almost 10.3m vaccine doses.