Amazon reported its second consecutive quarter of $100bn-plus sales, comfortably beating Wall Street’s targets as it continues to reap the rewards of pandemic conditions. Net sales of $108.5bn in the first three months of the year helped the company achieve a net income of $8.1bn, up by more than 220 per cent on the same period in 2020.
The majority of new coronavirus cases in the US are linked to the Covid-19 variant first identified in the UK, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The B.1.1.7 strain of Covid-19 made up an estimated 59.2 per cent of US coronavirus cases in the fortnight ended April 10.
The backers of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine intend to sue the Brazilian health regulator for defamation. Officials in the Latin American nation this week cited risks and a lack of information over the shot’s effectiveness and quality, as well as failings in its development and clinical studies.
The US state of Michigan has set out four specific vaccination milestones. In the first step of the “Vacc to Normal Challenge” the rule on remote working will be lifted once 55 per cent of Michiganders aged 16 and older have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and a 14-day period has passed.
The rare blood clotting disorder linked to the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine particularly affects younger adults, the UK medicines regulator said. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency released the figures as government scientific advisers continued to debate whether everyone under 40 should be offered an alternative to the AstraZeneca jab.
French president Emmanuel Macron has outlined a tentative, four-stage easing of the country’s lockdown, starting next week and finishing at the end of June. “Our battle now is to vaccinate as quickly as possible to increase our collective immunity,” he said.
UK household wealth has risen to record levels during the pandemic on the back of rising house prices, increased value of defined benefit pensions and government support, official figures showed on Thursday. Households’ net wealth rose to £11.4tn, the equivalent of £172,000 per person in the UK.
Europe has fully vaccinated 7 per cent of its population against Covid-19, a bigger proportion than the number of confirmed coronavirus cases, the regional director of the World Health Organization has said. The inoculation percentage compares with 5.5 per cent of the population who have had Covid-19, based on confirmed cases reported to the WHO.