Coronavirus live news: no need to quarantine after Covid contact if fully vaccinated, says CDC

People in the US who have had full number of jabs can skip 14-day quarantine, public health officials say; Irish lockdown set to be extended until April

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11.59pm GMT

The US has finalised an order for 200m more vaccine doses - 100m doses each from Pfizer and Moderna - to be delivered by the end of July, Joe Biden confirmed on Monday.

Speaking at the National Institutes of Health on Thursday, the president touted his team's early efforts to expand access to coronavirus vaccines, and criticised Donald Trump's strategy for distributing vaccines, saying the last administration did not order enough doses or mobilise enough people to administer shots.

11.56pm GMT

We reported earlier on Brazil reporting 54,742 additional confirmed Covid cases in the past 24 hours, along with 1,351 deaths. That brings the total number of cases in the country to 9.7 million, and the death toll to 236,000.

In further news, Reuters reports: