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Syria is facing a new surge in Covid-19 infections in both government-held areas and territory outside state control that could overwhelm the country’s fragile health system, aid workers, officials and medical sources said.
Government health authorities said the number of cases reported in the last twenty four hours has hit 235, the highest daily tally since the first case was reported in March last year.
Health workers say the country has administered only 440,000 doses of Covid vaccines so far, only a fraction of the country’s over 18 million people, Reuters reports.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned on Wednesday that countries in the region could continue to face localised Covid-19 outbreaks “well into 2022” even while deaths have fallen from their peak in January.
While vaccinations are progressing, the region faces a “severe vaccine inequality problem” that will prolong the pandemic, particularly in the poorer Latin American nations, PAHO said in a report. “Vaccine hesitancy may further slow uptake by the population or prevent full achievement of vaccination potential,” said the report by the regional branch of the World Health Organization, Reuters reports.
The US administered 387,493,716 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Wednesday morning and distributed 468,248,675 doses, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Those figures are up from the 386,780,816 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by Sept. 21 out of 467,249,715 doses delivered, Reuters reports.
The agency said 212,545,360 people had received at least one dose while 182,387,840 people had been fully vaccinated as of 6:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
The latest Covid developments in Australia:
Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni has eased anti-coronavirus restrictions including allowing resumption of education for universities and other post-secondary institutions, citing a decline in infections in the country.
The east African country started experiencing a second wave of the pandemic around May which resulted in a lockdown, Reuters reports.
Some of the restrictions were lifted at the end of July after cases started to drop.
Museveni said: “The Covid-19 transmission rates in the country have continued to decline. ..the daily average number of confirmed cases over the last one month has declined and stabilised.”
An antiviral medication reduces the risk of people being admitted to hospital with Covid-19, a pharmaceutical company said.
Patients who were given a three day course of remdesivir, also known as Veklury, as an injection saw an 87% reduction in risk of being admitted to hospital with the disease or dying, Gilead Sciences announced, PA reports.
The study saw 562 patients assigned the drug or a placebo in a randomised trial.
Results also showed an 81% reduction in hospital visits or people dying 28 days after receiving the drug.
The data, from phase three of the trial, is expected to be presented at a virtual medical meeting on September 29.
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro isolated himself at home on Wednesday and cancelled a trip after his health minister tested positive for Covid-19 and had to stay in quarantine in New York after the UN general assembly.
Brazil’s health regulator Anvisa recommended that the entire presidential delegation to the U.N. General Assembly remain in isolation and undergo more tests.
Health minister Marcelo Queiroga tested positive hours after accompanying Bolsonaro to give the first speech from a head of state at the annual assembly on Tuesday, the government said.
Bolsonaro defied U.N. rules that asked all those attending the assembly be inoculated against the coronavirus, Reuters reports.
The rapid spread of Covid makes it “inevitable” that children will be infected and have their education disrupted, making a strong case for vaccinating those aged 12 and over, the UK government’s leading medical advisers told MPs.
Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, rejected suggestions from one Conservative MP that “white boys” who have previously contracted Covid should be exempt from vaccination, saying that discrimination on that basis wasn’t practical or desirable.
Whitty and Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, the deputy chief medical officer, appeared before the Commons education committee over the decision to offer Covid vaccines to 12- to 15-year-olds, after the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation (JCVI) had said the benefits were too small.
Italy increases pledge to donate Covid vaccines
Italy plans to give other countries 45m doses of Covid-19 vaccines before the end of the year, three times its original pledge, prime minister Mario Draghi said.
In a video message to a US-hosted global Covid-19 Summit, Draghi said his government had previously promised to donate 15 million doses of vaccine by the end of the year, Reuters reports.
“Nearly half of these have already been delivered and today I am glad to announce that we will triple our efforts. We will donate another 30 million additional doses by the end of the year to reach 45m,” he said.
Updated
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said he would personally convene world foreign ministers before the end of the year to follow up on commitments made toward fighting the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reports.
At a virtual Covid-19 summit on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, President Joe Biden earlier promised to buy 500 million more vaccine doses to donate to other countries as the US comes under increasing pressure to share its supply with the rest of the world.
Blinken said he would convene foreign ministers to follow up on commitments made at the virtual summit and at an upcoming G20 meeting, ahead of a meeting of heads of state led by Biden to be held in the first quarter of 2022.
“We have to have the sustained engagement, continuing to hold ourselves accountable, for real progress,” Blinken said.
Updated
The Reverend Jesse Jackson was released on Wednesday from a US hospital, a month after he was admitted for a Covid-19 infection and to receive physical therapy for Parkinson’s disease.
The civil rights leader and his wife, Jacqueline, were first hospitalised at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago last month, Associated Press reports.
Jesse Jackson, 79, was vaccinated for Covid-19, but his 77-year-old wife was not.
She required oxygen and a brief intensive care unit stay before she was released earlier this month.
Updated
The shutdown of traveling and socialising during the Covid-19 pandemic last year brought severe dislocation to many people, but if you were a bird during this time it was highly appealing, new research has found.
The distribution of 80% of studied bird species in North America changed during pandemic lockdowns last year, the study found, with most of these species increasing in abundance in and around urban areas that fell unusually quiet due to a sudden drop in traffic.
Summary
Here is a round-up of the main Covid news stories from around the world today:
- The United States will buy 500 million more coronavirus vaccine shots to donate to other countries, president Joe Biden has confirmed today.
- Global Covid cases have fallen in the past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed. There were 3.6 million new cases reported around the world last week, down from 4 million new infections the previous week.
- Health authorities in Germany are planning new rules under which unvaccinated workers would not receive compensation for lost pay if coronavirus measures forced them to quarantine.
- Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, who led the development of the UK’s Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, has warned governments and medical funding agencies have not learned the importance of pandemic preparedness.
- Police in the Canadian province of Quebec are searching for a man they suspect of punching a nurse in the face for giving his wife a Covid vaccine without his consent, a police spokesman said on Wednesday.
- Ukraine is planning to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for certain professions, including teachers and employees of state institutions and local governments.
- In Australia, police in Melbourne have again fired non-lethal rounds and teargas at anti-Covid lockdown protesters to end an almost three-hour standoff at the city’s war memorial during a third straight day of demonstrations.
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Italy confirmed 67 deaths from Covid on Wednesday, the same number as the day before, its health ministry said.
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England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has told MPs this afternoon that the Covid transmission rate is currently highest among children compared to all age groups.
France has no plans at this stage to relax its health pass restrictions set up to deal with a fourth wave of Covid infections.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, as I hand over to my colleague Nadeem Badshah, who will keep you up-to-date with all the breaking coronavirus news throughout the evening. Goodbye.
As mentioned earlier this afternoon, Joe Biden has announced that the US will donate an additional 500m Covid vaccines to low- and middle-income countries around the world, bringing America’s total global donation to more than 1.1bn doses.
The US president outlined the plan on Wednesday at a virtual coronavirus summit where he urged world leaders to “go big” in tackling the pandemic and closing the vaccination gap with poorer nations.
For the full story, see below.
Spain will donate 7.5 million doses of Covid vaccine to Latin America and the Caribbean, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday.
It will provide a further 7.5 million to sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Europe, the Spanish government confirmed.
The latest pledge increases Spain’s overall commitment to the COVAX vaccine sharing programme to 30 million dose.
In Scotland, the industry body representing Scottish nightclubs has launched a legal challenge to the Holyrood government’s plans for vaccine passports.
The requirement for people over the age of 18 to show proof of vaccination to gain entry to nightclubs and large-scale events comes into force in Scotland on 1 October.
But the Night Time Industries Association Scotland (NTIA) describes the plans as “deeply flawed and incoherent”, and has now instructed lawyers to seek a judicial review of the proposals.
The group said the scheme has been drafted without meaningful industry consultation and that the definition of “nightclub” set out by Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, is likely to impact thousands of other bars and pubs.
Police in the Canadian province of Quebec are searching for a man they suspect of punching a nurse in the face for giving his wife a Covid vaccine without his consent, a police spokesman said on Wednesday.
The man confronted the female nurse on Monday morning in the office of a pharmacy in the city of Sherbrooke, about 155 kilometres (96 miles) south-east of Montreal, where she was assigned to administer vaccines, a police spokesman, Martin Carrier, said by phone.
“Our suspect went directly into the office and began to yell at the nurse,” Carrier said.
The man appeared to be very shocked that his wife was vaccinated at the pharmacy “without his authorization”, and hit the nurse in the face, Carrier added.
Sherbrooke police are asking for the public’s help in finding the assailant, who they say has short dark hair, dark eyes, thick eyebrows and a tattoo resembling a cross on his hand.
Russian travel agencies are selling package tours for Russians to receive foreign Covid vaccines abroad.
It is amid frustration among some Russians that their domestically produced vaccines have not been approved internationally.
Russia has not registered any foreign-made vaccines for use. It has approved four domestically produced vaccines including the two-dose Sputnik V. None of Russia’s shots are approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO) or European Union.
The Reuters news agency reports:
The WHO has suspended its approval process for Sputnik V until a factory that failed a good practices inspection is visited again, the Pan American Health Organization said on Sept. 15.
Demand in Russia for tours allowing people to receive foreign vaccines approved by the WHO has risen since that announcement last week, said Maya Lomidze, director of Russia’s Association of Tour Operators (ATOR).
Most of the trips, costing around 600-850 euros, are to Serbia, and one firm was offering Germany as a destination. They allow customers to receive one of four different vaccines, including the one developed with Pfizer, ATOR said in a statement.
The youngest primary school children and those in the most deprived areas suffered the greatest loss of learning during the pandemic lockdowns that closed schools to most pupils in England, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The ONS analysis found that schools with the highest proportion of children eligible for free school meals faced the biggest struggles in teaching remotely during the lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, which the agency attributed to lower levels of pupil engagement and communication with teachers, lack of internet access and “social problems” associated with deprivation.
Children aged five to seven, in key stage one, covered the least classroom material, compared with older children who were less reliant on their parents. The ONS said:
Remote learning was, at best, a partial substitute for in-class teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic, as pupils covered substantially less material when working from home than their peers in the classroom.
Italy confirmed 67 deaths from Covid on Wednesday, the same number as the day before, its health ministry said.
It came as the daily tally of new infections rose to 3,970 from 3,377, according to the Reuters news agency.
Italy has registered 130,488 deaths linked to Covid since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after the UK and the ninth-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.65 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with Covid - not including those in intensive care - stood at 3,796 on Wednesday, down from 3,937 a day earlier.
There were 40 new admissions to intensive care units, up from 38 on Tuesday. The total number of intensive care patients edged down to 513 from a previous 516.
Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, who led the development of the UK’s Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, has warned governments and medical funding agencies have not learned the importance of pandemic preparedness.
Prof Gilbert said that while her team was generously funded to carry out further Covid vaccine research, she is struggling to obtain funding for studies on MERS, Lassa fever and Nipah viruses, which pose future threats.
She told an online meeting of the Royal Society of Medicine on Wednesday:
We do need to start planning for a future pandemic. I don’t want to depress everybody by making people think this is all going to happen again, but ... those of us who work on pandemic preparedness want to put plans in place so we can respond better next time.
Her team is still seeking funding for research aimed at developing vaccines that could target new strains of existing viruses. She added:
We should really be working now to do everything we can to prepare for a potential future pandemic while we have all the knowledge.
If we wait five or ten years we lose that information. We’ll have forgotten what the most important things to change are.
By spending a small amount now, we don’t have to have the massive costs at a later stage.
US to purchase 500m more Covid shots to share with rest of the world
The United States will buy 500 million more coronavirus vaccine shots to donate to other countries, president Joe Biden has confirmed today.
It comes as the US have been facing increasing pressure to share its supply with the rest of the world.
The White House is hosting a four-hour virtual summit aimed at boosting global vaccination rates and the administration of President Joe Biden wants to show it is leading by example, reports Reuters.
President Biden told the summit, which includes the leaders of Canada, Indonesia, South Africa and the UK, as well as World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus:
To beat the pandemic here we need to beat it everywhere. This is an all hands on deck crisis.
The extra vaccines will bring US donations to the rest of the world to more than 1.1 billion doses, far short of the 5 billion to 6 billion doses global health experts say is needed by poorer countries.
In Singapore, the country’s health ministry has reported 1,457 new Covid cases today, the highest since April last year.
A recent rise in cases after the relaxation of some Covid measures has prompted Singapore to pause further reopening.
More than 80% of its population has been vaccinated against the virus.
UK records 166 new Covid deaths and 34,460 new infections on Wednesday
Staying with the UK for a moment, the latest daily Covid statistics have just been released by the government.
While deaths have gone down from 203 on Tuesday to 166 in the past 24 hours, the number of new coronavirus cases has risen.
There were 34,460 new infections in the UK on Wednesday, compared to 31,564 yesterday.
Transmission in England highest among 12- to 15-year-olds, expert warns
England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty has told MPs this afternoon that the Covid transmission rate is currently highest among children compared to all age groups.
He also said almost all 12- to 15-year-olds would get infected at some point. He said:
There is definitely substantial transmission happening in this age group.
In fact, the age group we’re talking about is the one in which the highest rate of transmission is currently occurring, as far as we can tell.
All children in that age group will be offered a COVID-19 vaccine after Whitty and his colleagues said last week that children would benefit from reduced disruption to their education.
Whitty said that the recommendation focused purely on the benefit to children aged between 12 and 15, and had not been made for political reasons or for the benefit of more vulnerable adults.
Updated
In Spain, the tourism group Globalia will speak to its unions to reach an alternative furlough agreement if the government fails to extend its Covid furlough programme.
Spain’s furlough scheme is set to end at the end of September and Globalia, which owns airline Air Europa, will propose furloughs “for organisational and productive reasons” to around 9,000 employees across the group.
It owns various companies, including Be Live Hotels and handling firm Groundforce, reports Reuters.
Earlier this week, airline Iberia - which recently bought Air Europa in a cut-price deal - also announced that it would propose a furlough to its employees, under similar conditions, should Spain’s force majeure government scheme not be prolonged.
Air travel to Spain has slowly begun to recover in recent months with 5 million international passengers arriving in August, according to official data released on Monday, soaring by 172% from a year ago, but less than half compared with pre-pandemic levels.
Earlier we brought you the news that Brazil’s health minister Marcelo Queiroga tested positive for the coronavirus in New York after president Jair Bolsonaro spoke at the UN general assembly on Tuesday.
Queiroga shook hands with UK prime minister Boris Johnson as part of a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the assembly. Here is the video of said handshake...
Other members of Brazil’s government in New York tested negative for the virus, a statement said.
Ukraine is planning to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for certain professions, including teachers and employees of state institutions and local governments,
The country’s health minister Oleh Lyashko said on Wednesday that the new requirements would be brought in after a final decision by the ministry in coming days. He said:
We propose to start the introduction of mandatory preventive vaccinations against acute respiratory disease Covid-19.
It came as Ukraine begins tightening its lockdown restrictions from Thursday after a significant increase in the number of new Covid cases.
It has imposed a nationwide “yellow” code which restricts mass spectator events and imposes restrictions on venues such as gyms and cinemas.
Schools, universities and companies with fully vaccinated staff are allowed to work without restrictions.
Meanwhile, in the United States, a medical professor who is opposed to mask and vaccine mandates and attacked concern over the pandemic as “Covid mania” has been named as Florida’s new surgeon general.
Dr Joseph Ladapo, who likened the eating of fruit and vegetables to the benefits of vaccination, has been appointed to the role by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor.
Mr DeSantis himself has railed against restrictions placed upon day-to-day life to dampen the Covid pandemic and has sought to block funding for schools in the state that have attempted to make students wear masks to stop the spread of the virus that has killed more than 675,000 people in the US since the pandemic began.
Ladapo is a Harvard-trained doctor who was until recently a researcher at UCLA. His new position for the state government will come alongside a new position he has accepted at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
At a press conference on Tuesday to mark his appointment, Lapado said he would “reject fear” in his dealing with the pandemic. He added:
Florida will completely reject fear. Fear is done.
Global Covid cases have fallen in the past week, the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed.
There were 3.6 million new cases reported around the world last week, down from 4 million new infections the previous week.
The drop marks the first significant fall in cases for more than two months. Most pertinently, cases fell across every world region, the Associated Press reported.
In the WHO’s latest update on the pandemic released on Tuesday, it said there were major decreases in cases in two regions, specifically a 22% fall in the Middle East and a 16% drop in Southeast Asia.
The UN health agency said there were just under 60,000 deaths in the past week, marking 7% decline, while Southeast Asia reported a 30% decrease in Covid deaths.
The most coronavirus cases were seen in renowned hotspots US, India, Britain, Turkey and the Philippines.
WHO also said the faster-spreading Delta variant has now been seen in 185 countries and exists in every part of the world.
Germany to end quarantine pay for un-vaccinated workers
Health authorities in Germany are planning new rules under which unvaccinated workers would not receive compensation for lost pay if coronavirus measures forced them to quarantine.
In a draft document seen by the Reuters news agency, it showed the rules would come into force from October 11 at the latest.
While the rules would affect people who test positive for the virus, they would also include those returning from trips to countries designated “high risk” for Covid, including Britain, Turkey and parts of France.
In Germany, critics have claimed the rules would be equivalent to a mandate for Covid vaccinations because many workers cannot afford to stay at home without pay.
Laws regulating data privacy are especially tough in Germany because of its history of Nazi and Communist state surveillance of citizens. Employers usually have no right to ask staff for information about their health issues.
Like many other European countries, vaccinations are not compulsory in Germany but authorities have been taking measures that make it increasingly inconvenient to be unvaccinated. But the country’s health minister Jens Spahn said the proposed rules were a matter of fairness, adding:
Why should others pay for someone who decides not to be vaccinated?
Updated
The number of cycling trips made by women in England rose by more than 50% in 2020, official statistics have shown, as the quieter roads of lockdown seemingly helped to tempt a demographic known to be more wary of traffic danger on to their bikes.
While for men there was a 12% overall rise in the average number of cycle “stages” – rides that formed part of a greater journey – made by each person in 2020 compared with the year before, for women the increase was 56%, Department for Transport (DfT) statistics show.
Overall, men still cycled more on average over the year, as has long been the case. However, while in 2019 men cycled almost three times as many stages as women, in 2020 this fell to twice as many.
A DfT report introducing the figures notes that studies have shown women are consistently more likely than men to believe that roads are too dangerous to cycle on, and that amid the lockdown of 2020, motor vehicle traffic was 21% lower across England compared with the year before.
Updated
In Australia, police in Melbourne have again fired non-lethal rounds and teargas at anti-Covid lockdown protesters to end an almost three-hour standoff at the city’s war memorial during a third straight day of demonstrations.
More than 200 people were arrested. Two officers were injured by bottles thrown at them and one was hospitalised with chest pains, Victoria police said. Earlier, up to 400 protesters had camped on the steps of the Shrine of Remembrance, lighting flares and throwing bottles, batteries, tap handles and golf balls at police.
The protests that have seized Australia’s second-largest city for days had their genesis with members of the powerful Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), who were resisting a government mandate for compulsory coronavirus vaccinations for workers on building sites.
But the initial rally appears to have since been hijacked by far-right extremists, allegedly including neo-Nazis and anti-vaccination groups, who have organised via Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp. Comments circulating on social media channels, seen by the Guardian, are explicitly racist, antisemitic, and include conspiracy theorist tropes.
Updated
No plans to relax France health pass restrictions
France has no plans at this stage to relax its health pass restrictions set up to deal with a fourth wave of Covid infections.
The remarks were made by French government spokesman Gabriel Attal on Wednesday, the Reuters news agency reported.
Attal also told a news conference after a cabinet meeting that the coronavirus health situation was improving in France.
Updated
Amnesty International has accused six pharmaceutical companies that have developed Covid vaccines of fuelling a global human rights crisis, citing their refusal to sufficiently waive intellectual property rights, share vaccine technology and boost global vaccine supply.
After assessing the performance of six Covid vaccine developers – Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Novavax – Amnesty International claims that all are failing to uphold their own human rights commitments and warns they should not be putting profit before the lives of people in the world’s poorest countries.
Less than 1% of the almost 6bn doses of Covid vaccine administered worldwide have gone to low-income countries, with almost 80% delivered to wealthy countries. Despite calls to ensure a fair global vaccine supply, some companies have continued to disproportionally distribute vaccines to wealthy countries, according to Amnesty’s report, published today.
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said:
Big pharma’s intentional blocking of knowledge transfer and their wheeling and dealing in favour of wealthy states has brewed an utterly devastating vaccine scarcity for so many others.
Hello, I’m Tom Ambrose and will be keeping you updated on the day’s breaking Covid headlines throughout the afternoon.
We start with the news that the Joe Biden is reportedly set to announce that the US is doubling its purchase of Pfizer’s coronavirus shots.
It is to share with the world up to 1bn doses as he works towards vaccinating 70% of the global population within the next year. The Associated Press reports:
The stepped-up US commitment is to be the cornerstone of the global vaccination summit Biden is convening virtually Wednesday on the sidelines of the UN general assembly, where he plans to push well-off nations to do more to get the coronavirus under control.
World leaders, aid groups and global health organisations are growing increasingly vocal about the slow pace of global vaccinations and the inequity of access to shots between residents of wealthier and poorer nations.
The US purchase, according to two senior Biden administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview Biden’s remarks, will bring the total US vaccination commitment to more than 1.1bn doses through 2022.
At least 160m shots supplied by the US have been distributed to more than 100 countries, representing more donations than the rest of the world combined.
Updated
Here's a summary of the latest developments
- The UK has announced plans for a “vaccine swap” with South Korea. The UK will send over 1m doses of its Pfizer/BioNTech stockpile to South Korea in the coming weeks as the country attempts to fully vaccinate 70% of its population by the end of October.
- Brazil’s health minister Marcelo Queiroga shook hands with maskless British prime minister Boris Johnson at the UN before testing positive for Covid. Marcelo Queiroga, who sat close to Johnson and the UK foreign secretary Liz Truss on Monday during their meeting with Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro, confirmed his positive test on Twitter alongside a picture of himself wearing a mask. He was also filmed shaking hands with Johnson.
- A no-fly zone has been declared over Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, amid a third day of anti-lockdown protests. Police asked the aviation authority to declare the no-fly zone for operational and safety reasons.
- Australia’s tourism minister said the country is on track to reopen its borders “by Christmas at the latest”. Dan Tehan said on Wednesday during a National Press Club of Australia talk: “I do empathise with the Australians who have been denied the opportunity to travel overseas this year.”
- The UK environment secretary George Eustice says the UK will pay “tens of millions” to support a CO2 producer as the country struggles with the ongoing energy crisis. He said it is going to cost the UK “many millions, possibly tens of millions” over the next three weeks.
That’s it from me for today. Handing over now to my colleague Tom Ambrose. Thanks for reading!
With little work for taxi drivers in Thailand amid the pandemic, a Bangkok cab company has transformed its cars into mini vegetable gardens to provide food for workers.
The Ratchapruek Taxi Cooperative has been forced to take hundreds of cars off the road in the last year as a result of Covid, reports Reuters, leaving many drivers without enough money to pay for the lease on their vehicles.
The cooperative has been trying to help drivers by growing vegetables on the roofs and bonnets of 300 of its unused cabs to help feed drivers and their families.
“We discussed among each other and decided to grow vegetables to eat because there is no use for these taxis,” said Thapakorn Asawalertkul, a business consultant for the company. “They have become just metal as they’ve been parking for over a year now.”
Thailand has recorded over 1.5m Covid cases and 15,600 deaths, 99% of which have been since April 2021. Only 21% of people are vaccinated.
The UK government has said it is working as “quickly as possible” to remove the requirement for PCR testing for international travellers.
The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, told a transport committee hearing today that while he did not have a precise date for when it would be lifted he said his colleagues at the Department of Health are “aware of half-term” when families might want to go on holiday.
He said:
It’s clear the range of measures I introduced this week and last week are going to make a big difference and people will be able to travel much more freely. Part of that is the removal of the PCR test on day two and replacing it with a much simpler lateral flow test.
He added:
They [the department of health] are aware of half-term and are working closely with the private-sector providers to ensure we can do this as quickly as possible.
Updated
For UK politics news, please follow Andrew Sparrow’s live blog which is now up and running:
UK announces 'vaccine swap' deal with South Korea
The UK government has announced plans for a “vaccine swap” with South Korea.
The UK will send over 1m doses of its Pfizer/BioNTech stockpile to South Korea in the coming weeks as the country attempts to fully vaccinate 70% of its population by the end of October.
South Korea will then return the same volume of doses back to the UK by the end of this year.
The UK has previously announced a similar deal with Australia.
The health secretary, Sajid Javid, said:
By working closely with our friends in South Korea, this vaccine swap will maximise their rollout speed without having an impact on the UK’s vaccine programme.
Separately, we continue to deliver on our commitment to donate 100m doses to nations around the world by June 2022 to ensure as many people across the world are as safe from Covid-19 as possible.
Marcelo Queiroga was reportedly staying at the same New York hotel as Joe Biden. And after shaking hands with the Brazilian health minister maskless on Monday, the British prime minister Boris Johnson went to the White House on Tuesday to meet the US president.
Updated
More pictures from the meeting including Brazil’s health minister Marcelo Queiroga, who has tested positive for coronavirus, and the maskless UK prime minister Boris Johnson:
Brazil’s health minister (who met and shook hands with a mask-less Boris Johnson on Monday during meeting with Jair Bolsonaro) has announced he has Covid and is isolating. In this picture he sits on the far left. pic.twitter.com/U2ViRQAhXD
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) September 22, 2021
Another official photo of the meeting where the mostly maskless British officials sit down with Brazil’s supposedly unvaccinated president and his health minister (who has just tested positive for Covid) pic.twitter.com/SYyycM5OMW
— Tom Phillips (@tomphillipsin) September 22, 2021
Russia has recorded 817 deaths and 19,706 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, reports Reuters.
Updated
The UK’s refusal to recognise Covishield, the Indian-made version of the AstraZeneca vaccine (see 06:47), has prompted outrage in India, reports the BBC.
More than 721m doses of the vaccine have been administered so far, making it India’s most used vaccine.
The UK recently announced new rules - to come into force on 4 October - that allow fully vaccinated travellers from some countries not to self-isolate. But it did not include India.
India has branded the move “discriminatory” and called on the UK to drop the requirement for fully-vaccinated Indians to self-isolate for 10 days.
India’s foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla reportedly said the issue has been taken up with UK foreign secretary Liz Truss and warned India might take “reciprocal measures”.
Shringla said it is “a discriminatory policy and does impact our citizens travelling to the UK.
Brazil's health minister shook hands with maskless Boris Johnson at UN before testing positive for Covid
More on Brazil’s health minister Marcelo Queiroga testing positive for coronavirus in New York (see 06:25) from Tom Phillips, the Guardian’s Latin America correspondent:
Twenty four hours after meeting with a mask-less Boris Johnson in New York, Brazil’s health minister has announced he has tested positive for Covid and gone into isolation.
Marcelo Queiroga, who sat close to Johnson and the foreign secretary Liz Truss on Monday during their meeting with Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro, confirmed his positive test on Twitter alongside a picture of himself wearing a mask.
Queiroga, 55, was filmed shaking hands with Johnson and patting the prime minister on the arm during Monday’s meeting at the consulate general’s house in New York.
Despite Bolsonaro publicly claiming not to have been vaccinated against Covid, Johnson and other members of the British delegation were not wearing masks, although Queiroga was.
Brazilian Health Minister - who tested positive for Covid - was staying at the same hotel as President Biden in NYC.
— Raquel Krähenbühl (@Rkrahenbuhl) September 22, 2021
He went to the UN today to watch President Bolsonaro’s speech.
Here, he shakes hands with Prime Minister Boris Jonhson- who met Biden today at the White House. pic.twitter.com/CSxdBuTIfY
Hours later Queiroga was caught on camera making obscene hand gestures to Brazilian protesters who had taken to the streets to denounce Bolsonaro’s anti-scientific handling of a Covid outbreak that has killed nearly 600,000 Brazilians.
Brazil has reportedly cancelled its participation in the UN general assembly after Queiroga’s positive test - the second Covid case detected in the South American country’s delegation in recent days.
Updated
No fly-zone declared over Melbourne amid lockdown protests
A no-fly zone has been declared over Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, amid a third day of anti-lockdown protests.
Police asked the aviation authority to declare the no-fly zone for operational and safety reasons, reports Reuters.
Groups of protesters roamed the streets and gathered at a city landmark, the Shrine of Remembrance, on Wednesday, despite being urged to remain at home.
“This is a very dynamic situation,” police media official Belinda Batty told the news agency, but did not say how many people had been arrested.
It comes as the city appeared to have escaped widespread damage and with no injuries after being shaken by a magnitude 5.9 earthquake.
Close to 40 million people in Russia have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus, reports Reuters.
Authorities in the country, which has a population of 146 million, have said they are aiming to reach 80% immunity by November.
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Australian tourism minister Dan Tehan also said “there is light at the end of the tunnel” for the industry. When 80% of the country is vaccinated, he said outbound travel will resume and people will be able to travel freely.
He said he hopes home quarantine will also be introduced in the lead-up to Christmas – rather than requiring people to quarantine in hotels.
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Australia on track to reopen borders 'by Christmas', says tourism minister
Australia’s tourism minister said the country is on track to reopen its borders “by Christmas at the latest”, reports CNN.
Dan Tehan said on Wednesday during a National Press Club of Australia talk: “I do empathise with the Australians who have been denied the opportunity to travel overseas this year.”
He added: “It’s another reason why everyone should get vaccinated and we have to stick to the national plan that will see our international border open up – at this rate by Christmas at the latest.”
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In-person fashion shows have returned to Milan for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
At Milan fashion week, 43 of the 65 shows will have a physical audience and many of the parties are back, reports AFP.
However, audiences will be required to show either proof of vaccination or a negative test and to wear face masks. Many of the buyers and journalists were not able to attend as a result of travel restrictions and capacity has been restricted.
Carlo Capasa, chairman of the CNMI, Italy’s national Fashion chamber, said the shows “mark a moment of rebirth”.
Turkey, Egypt and the Maldives are among eight countries to be removed from the UK’s travel “red list” today.
From 4am on Wednesday, Kenya, Oman, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were also removed.
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UK will pay 'tens of millions' to support CO2 producer, says environment secretary
The UK environment secretary George Eustice says the UK will pay “tens of millions” to support a CO2 producer as the country struggles with the ongoing energy crisis.
He told Sky News it is going to cost the UK “many millions, possibly tens of millions” over the next three weeks.
He said there is a “lot of turbulence” in the market following the pandemic as countries come out of lockdown.
If we the government did not act, he said some of the poultry processing plants would have to close.
“We’ve intervened to support this company.”
— Sky News (@SkyNews) September 22, 2021
Environment Secretary George Eustice says the UK will pay “tens of millions” to support a US-owned CO2 producer amid the ongoing energy crisis.#KayBurley
Get more on this story: https://t.co/Ep5h6nAgee pic.twitter.com/dJaTKWM3co
He said:
Lawyers are still working on those final details. It’s going to be into many millions, possibly the tens of millions, but it is to underpin some of those fixed costs.
He added:
It’s going to be temporary … at the end of the day we need the market to adjust.
The food industry know that there is going to be a sharp rise in the cost of carbon dioxide, probably going from something like 200 a tonne eventually up to closer to 1,000 a tonne, so a big, sharp rise.
He claimed there had been a “perfect storm” created by two plants in the UK and Norway shutting for maintenance as CF Industries, which supplies much of the CO2 used in food production, suspended operations in two factories as a result of high energy costs.
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New births in the US are rebounding after a decline during the pandemic, a report suggests.
In December 2020, births in the US were down by 7.7% on the previous year and by 9/4% in January 2021 compared with the January before, reports the Associated Press.
But according to a report released on Tuesday by the US Census Bureau, births hardly declined in March – down by only 0.15% compared with the previous year.
“This trend suggests that some people who postponed having babies last year had them this year,” said Anne Morse, a Census Bureau demographer on the report.
“The winter decrease in births may have been prompted by couples who consciously chose to delay having children amid the uncertainty of the pandemic. It may also have been influenced by stress or limited physical interaction with a sexual partner.”
It comes after the US centres for disease control and prevention (CDC) reported in May that the US birth rate dropped 4% last year – the most sizeable single-year drop in nearly half a century.
Hi, I’m looking after the blog for the next few hours. Please get in touch with any tips or suggestions: miranda.bryant@guardian.co.uk
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India urges UK to resolve quarantine dispute
India’s foreign minister on Tuesday urged Britain to remove a rule requiring Indians visiting there to quarantine even if they are fully vaccinated, Reuters reports.
India’s Covishield vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and manufactured in India by Pune-based Serum Institute, is not recognised by Britain under new rules despite being identical to the doses given to millions of Britons.
The rules, that come into effect next month, have caused anger, with many Indians branding the decision as discriminatory. Britons vaccinated in the UK with the same Indian-made doses are not required to quarantine.
They could also lead to a retaliation from New Delhi, with Indian government sources saying it was likely to take reciprocal steps if the issue is not quickly resolved.
“Urged early resolution of quarantine issue in mutual interest,” foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in a tweet after a meeting with his British counterpart Liz Truss in New York, where both are attending the United Nations general assembly.
The British high commission (embassy) in New Delhi said the UK was working with India to resolve the issue.
“We are engaging with the government of India to explore how we could expand UK recognition of vaccine certification to people vaccinated by a relevant public health body in India,” a spokesperson said.
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Brazil health minister tests positive for Covid at UN General Assembly
Brazil’s health minister tested positive for Covid in New York after president Jair Bolsonaro spoke at the UN general assembly on Tuesday.
Brazil’s government said in a statement that Marcelo Quiroga was in good health and would remain in isolation in the US. He got his first shot of coronavirus vaccine in January.
Other members of Brazil’s government in New York tested negative for the virus, the statement said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Bolsonaro spoke at the general assembly, flouting the requirement for all attendees to be vaccinated against the virus.
Bolsonaro has said several times over the last week that he remains unvaccinated. He said getting a shot is a personal, medical decision. He contracted Covid last year.
Queiroga was photographed side by side with Bolsonaro on several occasions this week. Tuesday morning he tweeted a picture with first lady Michele Bolsonaro.
Queiroga had breakfast Monday with several employees of investment funds in New York.
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Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage.
Brazil’s health minister tested positive for Covid in New York after president Jair Bolsonaro spoke at the UN general assembly on Tuesday. Brazil’s government said in a statement that Marcelo Quiroga was in good health and would remain in isolation in the US. He got his first shot of coronavirus vaccine in January.
India’s foreign minister on Tuesday urged Britain to remove a rule requiring Indians visiting there to quarantine even if they are fully vaccinated.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- Cambridge University in England has reported that 96% of 12,000 students said that they had received a Covid-19 vaccination, or intended to get one, before arriving in the city for the new academic year.
- About 20% of workers in Nigeria have lost their jobs as a result of Covid-19.
- US president Joe Biden is betting on millions more rapid, at-home tests to help curb the latest deadly wave of the Covid-19 pandemic
- The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, described the world as getting an “F in ethics” over global vaccine distribution as he spoke at the UN general assembly on Tuesday. He said the inequitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines is an “obscenity”.
- The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has warned that uneven vaccine distribution globally is affecting economic recovery from the pandemic.
- The mass take-up of the UK’s NHS app in order to use the Covid Pass feature has led to a surge in people registering their organ donation preference.
- Long Covid patients told a UK parliamentary committee that they are “struggling’” to get help on the NHS.
- The EU is expected to accept the NHS Covid pass as proof of vaccination across the union within days.
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