A new flash point over vaccines

Italian authorities found a stockpile of 29 million doses of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine languishing in a factory near Rome. The discovery of so many doses raised suspicions that the pharmaceutical company was trying to find a way to export them to Britain or elsewhere.

The European Union has demanded that AstraZeneca fulfill its promises of deliveries to the E.U. The bloc is finalizing emergency legislation that would give it the power to restrict exports of vaccines for six weeks to ease supply shortages.

The new rules will make it harder for pharmaceutical companies producing vaccines in the E.U. to export them and are likely to disrupt supply to Britain.

Details: Authorities went to the site after receiving an alert from the European Commission, which found a discrepancy between what the company said it was producing in E.U. facilities and what the facilities themselves were reporting.

The numbers: The European Union was meant to receive more than 100 million vaccine doses from AstraZeneca in the first quarter of this year, but has received only 16.6 million — a supply shortage that has derailed vaccination efforts across the continent.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other developments:

Hong Kong suspended use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine after packaging defects ranging from cracked containers to loose caps were discovered in one batch of doses. Health officials called it a precaution.
Chancellor Angela Merkel scrapped an unpopular plan to shut down the German economy for two extra days over the Easter holidays as her government faces anger over its chaotic response to a resurgence of the coronavirus.
The New York Times