|  | | | | | | | | | What you need to know about the coronavirus today | | | | | | Allergy warning over Pfizer vaccine
Britain’s medicine regulator has advised that people with a history of significant allergic reactions do not get Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine after two people reported adverse effects on the first day of rollout.
Britain began mass vaccinating its population in a global drive that poses one of the biggest logistical challenges in peacetime history, starting with the elderly and frontline workers.
National Health Service medical director Stephen Powis said the advice had been changed after two NHS workers reported anaphylactoid reactions associated with getting the shot.
Merkel pushes for tougher German lockdown
Chancellor Angela Merkel threw her weight behind calls for a fuller lockdown in Germany that would include closing shops after Christmas, telling legislators that vaccines alone would not majorly alter the pandemic’s course in the first quarter.
Europe’s largest economy has been in partial lockdown for six weeks, with bars and restaurants closed but shops and schools open. That has stopped the coronavirus’s exponential growth but infection levels remain at a high level.
Speaking in parliament, Merkel said regional leaders should follow scientific guidance, which has called for people to further reduce their contact with others.
Rich countries have bought too many vaccines, says Amnesty
Rich countries have secured enough coronavirus vaccines to protect their populations nearly three times over by the end of 2021, Amnesty International and other groups said, possibly depriving billions of people in poorer areas.
Track the global spread here. | | | | | | | | Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Cruise from hell, Shell, Virgin Royal Caribbean’s “cruise to nowhere” doesn’t get very far and Shell boss Ben van Beurden needs to fix his revolving green door. Catch up with the latest financial insights. | | | | | | | | Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
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We prefer tips from named sources, but if you’d rather remain anonymous, you can submit a confidential news tip. Here’s how. | | | | | | | | | | | | | Top Stories | | What teacher layoffs in one city could mean for U.S. schools: With budgets battered by the coronavirus pandemic, state and local governments across the United States have laid off nearly 700,000 workers this year, according to U.S. government data, equal to 8.4% of the workforce. Advocates warn that the experience of Schenectady, an aging industrial city in New York, could become commonplace if Washington does not provide more help. | | | | Bermuda and the Bahamas aren’t exactly big players in the oil-and-gas world. They don’t produce any of the fuels at all. Yet the islands are deep wells of profit for European oil giant Royal Dutch Shell. In 2018 and 2019, Shell earned more than $2.7 billion - about 7% of its total income in those years - tax-free by reporting profits in companies located in Bermuda and the Bahamas that employed just 39 people and generated the bulk of their revenue from other Shell entities, company filings show. | | | | Criminals are becoming more sophisticated in their use of cryptocurrencies to launder money, with hundreds of millions of dollars of dirty funds last year flowing through digital wallets that allow users to hide their trail, according to Elliptic. At least 13% of all criminal proceeds in bitcoin passed through privacy wallets - which make it harder to track cryptocurrency transactions - in 2020, up from 2% in 2019, according to a study by the digital currency forensics firm. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Top Stories on Reuters TV | | | | | | | |
