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In the meantime you can catch up with all our coverage of the pandemic here.
Round-up of recent developments
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Developing countries will be able to buy Covid-19 vaccines collectively through the Covax facility using a new World Bank financing mechanism.
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The number of Covid-19 cases across the US may have been undercounted by as much as 60%, researchers at the University of Washington have found.
- California and New York City will mandate government workers to be vaccinated or regularly get tested for the virus.
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Russia has approved clinical trials combining the AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccines, according to Russia’s state drug register.
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Tunisian president Kais Saied has ordered a month-long nighttime curfew, banning the movement of people and vehicles between 7pm to 6am.
- Cases fell in the UK fell for the sixth day running, to 24,950 new cases. That’s the lowest number of new cases since 4 July, three weeks ago.
- Tanzania received its first shipment of vaccines through the Covax facility, donated by the US.
- The White House has cited the Delta variant as reason to keep in place a travel ban from the UK and Schengen countries.
Greece has said children between 12-15 could be inoculated against Covid-19 using Pfizer/BioNTech’s and Moderna’s vaccines.
About 46.8% of Greece’s population is fully vaccinated, and the government is offering cash incentives to young people in a bid to drive take-up rates up to 70% by autumn.
Greece announced 2,070 new Covid19 infections and five deaths on Monday, taking the country’s total number of infections to 477,975 and the death toll to 12,903.
The United States has administered 342,212,051 doses of Covid-19 vaccines, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Reuters reports that Monday’s figure is up from the 341,818,968 vaccine doses the CDC said had been injected by 25 July.
The agency said 188,729,282 people had received at least one dose, while 163,173,366 people were fully vaccinated as of Monday.
The CDC tally includes two-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech , as well as Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot vaccine.
Developing countries will be able to buy Covid-19 vaccines collectively through the Covax facility using a new World Bank financing mechanism.
The mechanism will allow 92 developing territories to buy doses additional to the subsidised shots they receive through Covax, AFP reports.
Covax will use funds from the World Bank and other development banks to make advanced purchases from pharmaceutical companies based on countries’ total demand.
The financing arrangement would mean that up to 430 million additional doses could be delivered between late 2021 and mid-2022 to the 92 territories.
The financing mechanism “will allow Covax to unlock additional doses for low- and middle-income countries” Gavi chief executive Seth Berkley said in a statement.
In the UK, Downing Street and scientists remained cautious about declaring a turning point in the outbreak on Monday night despite a huge drop in Covid case numbers for the sixth day in a row.
No 10 said it was “encouraging” that infections had fallen to their lowest level in three weeks at 24,950 confirmed cases, with Boris Johnson taking the decision to allow more double-vaccinated key workers to avoid isolation with a daily testing programme.
But the prime minister’s official spokesman said he still believed the UK was “not out of the woods yet” and highlighted the fact that the full impact of the 19 July unlocking has not yet been reflected in case numbers.
Employees at a further 1,200 workplaces will have daily testing set up in a bid to deal with the wave of staff shortages hitting key industries in the UK.
The move is an expansion of the government policy announced last week to allow fully vaccinated workers at 800 sites in the food industry and transport sector among others to avoid self-isolation if they test negative.
The requirement to self-isolate following contact with a Covid case will end for all fully vaccinated people on 16 August.
On Monday, the health ministry said it would set up daily testing at a further 1,200 workplaces including military bases and prisons.
Updated
US cases may have been undercounted by up to 60%
The number of Covid-19 cases across the US may have been undercounted by as much as 60%, researchers at the University of Washington have found.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, builds on research which has found the number of reported cases “represents only a fraction of the estimated total number of infections”. It has important implications for how many Americans need to be vaccinated to stop outbreaks.
The paper comes as a swath of states across the south and midwest, especially Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana, experience outbreaks driven by Delta variant infections among unvaccinated people.
Updated
California and New York City will mandate government workers to be vaccinated or regularly get tested for the virus, officials said on Monday, as they battle to curb a wave of infections caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
Reuters reports New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the city would require its more than 300,000 employees to get vaccinated by 13 September or otherwise take weekly tests. His announcement came a week after the city passed a vaccine mandate for all healthcare workers at city-run hospitals and clinics.
Soon after, California governor Gavin Newsom said that all state employees, around 246,000 people, would be required to get vaccinated starting in August or else be subjected to Covid-19 testing on a minimum weekly basis.
“We’re at a point now in this pandemic where an individual’s choice to not get vaccinated is impacting the rest of us,” Newsom told a press conference on Monday.
Russia has approved clinical trials combining the AstraZeneca and Sputnik V vaccine, according to Russia’s state drug register.
Reuters reports that five Russian clinics will hold trials that will conclude in early March 2022. Trials mixing the two vaccines have already been given the go-ahead in Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and Belarus.
The Russian health ministry’s ethical committee had halted the approval process for the trials in May, requesting further information.
“Has immunity finally got the upper hand, or will the sudden drop in Covid cases prove no more than a brief downturn?” The Guardian’s science editor, Ian Sample, analyses the factors driving the UK’s recent downturn in cases:
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Tunisia imposes nighttime curfew
Tunisian president Kais Saied has ordered a month-long nighttime curfew, banning the movement of people and vehicles between 7pm to 6am.
Urgent health cases and night workers are exempt from the curfew, wihich is due to last until 27 August, the presidency said in a statement posted on Facebook.
The presidential order also prohibits people from travelling between cities, except for essential or urgent health reasons. It also banned the gathering of more than three people on public roads or in public squares.
Updated
Hello, I’m Clea Skopeliti and I’ll be updating the blog for the next few hours. Feel free to send me a DM on Twitter if you spot a development I’ve not included. Thanks in advance.
Summary
I’m signing off for the day so here’s a summary of today’s coronavirus news.
- The US has decided to keep in place travel restrictions on the UK and Schengen area put in place under Trump, citing the delta variant as a cause for concern.
- Cases fell in the UK fell for the sixth day running, to 24,950 new cases. That’s the lowest number of new cases since 4 July, three weeks ago.
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Tanzania received its first shipment of vaccines through the Covax facility, donated by the US. The planned vaccine rollout marks a massive turnaround after late President John Magafuli had denied the coronavirus was a threat and refused to accept vaccines.
- Indonesia is expecting to receive 45m more doses of Covid-19 vaccines in August, health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin told a virtual news conference on Monday. The country also plans to relax some of its restrictions after going through a harsh outbreak of cases but there are concerns about the potential impacts. Some experts believe social and economic concerns are driving the changes more the scientific advice.
- For the second day running Thailand reported a record-breaking number of coronavirus cases, hitting 15,376 cases and 87 new deaths.
- Singapore plans to vaccinate 80% of its population by September in the hope it can begin to open borders and establish travel corridors with other countries with widespread vaccination.
- South African pharmaceutical company Aspen said it is releasing its first batch of vaccines manufactured in Africa. The doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccines will be distributed within South Africa and also made available to the African Union’s vaccination initiative.
- Heathrow airport has urged the UK government to reopen travel to fully vaccinated flyers from the EU and US after announcing cumulative losses from the Covid-19 pandemic have hit £2.9bn.
- More than 10 million residents of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam will be placed under a strict overnight curfew beginning on Monday, an unprecedented move to curb infections as Vietnam battles a rapid Covid-19 surge.
Updated
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said concerns about the delta variant are the cause for the US maintaining travel restrictions.
In response to a reporter’s question about the reasoning behind the move, considering the delta variant is already spreading in the US, Psaki said: “That doesn’t mean that having more people who have the delta variant is the right step.”
Psaki said infection numbers are going in the wrong direction but said it was positive that while there were hospitalisations among the unvaccinated, major illness was mostly being avoided in people who were vaccinations.
Psaki also said they saw good signs of increasing people being willing to encourage vaccination, including those who had changed their views after falling ill.
“We don’t want that to be the breaking point for anyone but we are seeing that across the country,” said Psaki, referring to a hospitalised radio host who planned to now advocate for the vaccine.
.@PressSec: "We will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point..."
— CSPAN (@cspan) July 26, 2021
Full video here: https://t.co/E8xswdGs4j pic.twitter.com/2ZJaVXrJbP
Updated
For some people, the moment the ambulance arrives is the time they start expressing regrets about not receiving a coronavirus vaccine. For others, it’s the death of a loved one.
Healthcare workers and Covid patients have spoken out about growing numbers who, once faced with the serious reality of catching the virus, realise that they made a huge mistake.
Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, a senior intensive care registrar, said she had only come across one patient in critical care who had received both vaccination doses, and that the “vast majority” of people she was seeing were “completely unvaccinated”.
According to official statistics, about 60% of people being admitted to hospital with Covid are unvaccinated.
Batt-Rawden said it was difficult to witness the look of regret on patient’s faces when they became very unwell and needed to go on a ventilator. “You can see it dawn on them that they potentially made the biggest mistake of their lives [in not getting the vaccine], which is really hard,” she said, adding that she had overheard people telling family members about their remorse.
The World Bank and global vaccine initiative Covax will help countries receiving donations speed up their vaccination campaigns by buying more doses.
A new initiative will mean Covax can negotiate and place advance orders from manufacturers, providing an estimated 430m more doses to developing countries by mid-2022.
The country’s seeking to purchase the vaccines will be able to notify Covax on which vaccines they would like to buy and choose a window for delivery.
Updated
Cases in UK fall to three-week low
The UK recorded 24,950 new cases on Monday, the lowest daily toll in three weeks.
The number of new cases has dropped for six consecutive days and the past week has seen a drop of 21.5% compared to the previous seven days.
The government also reported 14 new deaths. The latest data on hospitalisation was from 23 July, with 5,238 in hospital and 715 using mechanical ventilators.
Ireland and Italy among those joining France in requiring vaccine passes to enter bars and restaurants, report Daniel Boffey, Kim Willsherand Kate Connolly.
An increasing number of European governments are planning to prevent unvaccinated people from being able to attend hospitality venues such as bars and restaurants this summer, as Emmanuel Macron celebrates the fruits of the recent announcement of the policy in France.
France on Monday passed the threshold of 40 million people having received at least one vaccine dose – close to 60% of the population. Macron tweeted: “Together we will defeat the virus. We continue!”
A range of policies are being tried out across Europe as governments seek to push reluctant people into receiving jabs. In Sweden, a study being carried out by the University of Lund will examine whether the offer of a redeemable voucher worth £17 can convince people to take the plunge. In the Netherlands, batches of Hollandse nieuwe, or new-season Dutch herring, are being distributed to vaccination centres as an incentive.
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Senegal’s health ministry said Monday that hospitals in the capital Dakar were “close to saturation”, AFP reports.
A third wave of virus infections in recent weeks has forced cases up from a few dozen a day late last month to about 1,700 in July, with most of them in Dakar.
Health authorities have registered most of the new cases in Dakar, a city of over three million people.
“We are overwhelmed and close to saturation, with almost 99 percent of beds occupied in Dakar,” the national director of public health institutions, Ousmane Diallo, told AFP.
He said medical staff in the capital are “very tired and burned out”.
Vaccinations for children aged 12 to 15 will begin in August, health minister Vassilis Kikilias told local television on Monday.
The jabs will be optional but Kiklias encouraged all Greeks to get vaccinated. He said 30,000 appointments have been made by 15 to 17-year-olds.
Greece has administered more than 10 million vaccine doses, with around half the population fully vaccinated.
Mauritius said it recorded more than 1,000 new cases last week but claimed up to 99% were symptom-free, AFP reports.
“Everything is under control, the many quarantine centres are by no means overcrowded and there are no deaths or people seriously affected,” said Zouberr Joomaye, spokesman for the National Communication Committee, which is in charge of monitoring the pandemic.
Joomaye denied the recent spike in cases - which make up almost a third of the 3,528 cases recorded since March 2020 - were related to the limited opening of borders to tourists.
Months of closures have heavily hit the tourism-reliant economy.
In a drive to resume its economy, Singapore has said that it is aiming to vaccinate about 80% of its population with two doses by around early September.
This means that quarantine-free travels for those fully vaccinated will then be possible and borders beginning to reopen.
Lawrence Wong, the Southeast Asian city-state’s finance minister also said on Monday that the country aims to cover a similar proportion of senior citizens aged 70 and above by early-September.
Wong told Parliament that his country will establish travel corridors with other economies where the virus is under control. In addition, fully-vaccinated may not have to be quarantined, or may be allowed to self-isolate at home.
As of Monday, Singapore reported 135 new cases of COVID-19 infection.
White House keeps ban on UK, Schengen area
The White House has cited the delta variant as reason to keep in place a travel ban from the UK and Schengen countries, the BBC’s Jon Sopel reports.
The ban was first imposed by former President Donald Trump during the early stages of the pandemic last March.
White House confirms it’s maintaining travel ban on UK and Schengen countries imposed by Pres Trump last March. Cites delta variant. Will be blow to airlines and tourism industry hoping to salvage something from summer season. But most of all blow to families desperate to reunite
— Jon Sopel (@BBCJonSopel) July 26, 2021
Updated
The Netherlands said it will ease restrictions for travel to all EU countries, Reuters reports.
Travel to Spain and Portugal will now be possible despite high infection rates as travel advice is adapted to focus on variants that are not yet common in the Netherlands rather than infection rates.
The government is still however concerned about the impact of events at home, extending a ban on multi-day festivals.
Tanzania has received its first shipment of a million vaccines from Covax, the global vaccine sharing programme.
The vaccines were donated by the US and handed over in a ceremony involving the American ambassador at Julius Nyere airport in the capital Dar es Salaam.
Health minister Dr Dorothy Gwajima said the vaccine rollout would begin in the next few days with frontline workers, over-50s and people with chronic illnesses.
“We are aware of the rumors circulating in the social media about vaccines, but I urge you to follow the advice provided by our health experts as credible sources of information. Vaccines are an additional bullet to the public health measures we are promoting in fighting this pandemic,” she said.
“Tanzania has a track record of doing very well with immunization. This COVID-19 vaccine is not different from the other vaccines.”
Former President John Magafuli, who died in March, had previously denied the existence of Covid-19 and rejected vaccines.
Thailand reports record number of new cases for second day
For the second day running Thailand has reported a record-breaking number of coronavirus cases, hitting 15,376 cases and 87 new deaths.
The Delta variant has pushed up cases after Thailand had previously kept the virus relatively contained and the government is now facing criticism over the slow pace of vaccinations.
Thailand has only fully vaccinated 5.6% of the population, while 18.94% have received one dose.
Updated
With their adult populations largely vaccinated, the question for richer countries is over how much to protect children. England stands apart with its approach becoming “a laboratory for other countries”, writes Global health expert Prof Devi Sridhar.
The current approach in England seems to be to let teenagers get on with it and see what happens once they’re infected. The result will be an uncontrolled epidemic among younger age groups. Some British scientists aren’t alarmed by this, pointing to other diseases such as seasonal flu, which cause more hospitalisations among children than Covid-19. By contrast, paediatricians in the US argue that exposing children to a new virus with potentially long-term complications is a major risk that should be avoided. Covid-19 was among the top causes of child death in the US in 2020. Though I’m not a paediatrician, I struggle to understand how a disease considered risky to adolescents in the US can be considered innocuous in Britain.
- Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
Updated
South African pharmaceutical company Aspen said it is releasing its first batch of vaccines manufactured in Africa.
The doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccines will be distributed within South Africa and also made available to the African Union’s vaccination initiative.
“Supply for Africa and South Africa is particularly rewarding, given the current global inequality in accessing vaccines. This represents a big step forward in ensuring that Africa can address its healthcare priorities,” said Aspen’s chief executive Stephen Saad.
South Africa’s vaccination programme has hit several roadbumps. In February, the government rejected a batch of AstraZeneca vaccines over concerns it was not effective against the variant that had emerged there, now known as the beta variant.
More recently it had to dispose of 2m Johnson & Johnson vaccines over potential contamination during production in the US.
Updated
Uneven global vaccine rollouts mean returning to normal will take time, the head of the UK consortium sequencing Covid-19 genomes told Reuters.
Sharon Peacock, chair of the Covid-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, said it was monitoring for new variants emerging around the world.
“There’s quite a lot of new mutations in the Delta variant, and so that’s being watched very carefully. There’s no reason at this point in time to be alarmed about that,” she said.
“But we have to continue to watch for a particular sort of variant of a variant if you like, that is associated with, for example, even more spread … That’s under constant monitoring at the moment.”
Peacock said it would be a “long path” back to normality despite the British government saying it is time to learn to live with the virus.
“It’s not going to be one day that we wake up and say right we’re going to live with Covid-19 and everything’s OK. I think there’s still a lot of groundwork to be done,” she said.
Updated
Ireland eases restrictions for restaurants, cafes and pubs
Restaurants, cafés and pubs in Ireland can resume indoor hospitality on Monday, with service limited to adults who are vaccinated or have recovered from Covid-19, plus children.
For some establishments with no outdoor space it will be the first time they have opened since the first lockdown in March 2020 – one of Europe’s longest shutdowns.
The government was tweaking the plans up until Sunday night in an effort to balance the revival of the industry with concern about rising infection rates.
Customers must present a digital Covid certificate or Health Service Executive vaccination card to prove they are fully vaccinated or have recovered from the virus. About 70% of adults are fully vaccinated.
Children are exempt. One adult per group will have to supply contact details for contact tracing. A group can include up to six adults and nine children. Masks must be worn until seated. There will be no service at the bar. All premises must close by 11.30pm.
Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland, said his members were excited and nervous. The biggest challenge is said to be staff shortages, with an estimated 30% of former employees no longer available.
Updated
Ministers are preparing to ease travel rules for expats returning to the UK from Sunday, it has been reported.
UK nationals living overseas who have had both doses of a coronavirus jab will no longer need to self-isolate for 10 days when they arrive from an amber list country, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The exemption from quarantine currently applies only to people who were vaccinated under the UK programme, but the newspaper stated that the government plans to recognise foreign jabs, PA Media reports.
The Department for Transport has committed to holding a formal review of the rules for arriving travellers this week.
The Telegraph also reported that ministers are expected to agree to a reciprocal deal on quarantine-free travel with 33 countries, which could lead to a surge in trips between the UK and the EU.
Those countries include much of Europe such as Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France and Greece, plus some long-haul destinations including Barbados, Anguilla and the Cayman Islands.
There is also speculation that France could return to the amber travel list. It was moved to so-called “amber plus” earlier this month, which means even UK travellers who are fully vaccinated must self-isolate on their return from the country.
Speaking in the Commons last week, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said:
By the end of this month, UK nationals who have been vaccinated overseas will be able to talk to their GP, go through what vaccine they have had, and have it registered with the NHS that they have been vaccinated.
The reason for the conversation with the GP is to make sure that whatever vaccine they have had is approved in the United Kingdom.
Ultimately, there will be a co-ordination between the World Health Organisation, ourselves, the European regulator, the US regulator and other regulators around the world.
Because we are working at speed, at the moment it is UK nationals and citizens who have had UK vaccinations who will be able to travel to amber list countries other than France and come back and not quarantine.
We want to offer the same reciprocity as the 33 countries that recognise our app, and that will also happen very soon.
The devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own rules in terms of the requirements for arrivals from overseas, but their rules are often closely linked to the position in England.
Updated
France has reached a vaccination milestone as 40 million citizens have now received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, celebrated the news on Twitter.
Macron said that amounted to nearly 60% of the population, and that 4m of the vaccinations had been administered in the past two weeks.
C’est tous ensemble que nous vaincrons le virus. On continue ! pic.twitter.com/zzrSkAx5M7
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) July 26, 2021
Updated
Russia reported 23,239 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, including 2,629 in Moscow, taking the official national tally since the pandemic began to 6,149,780.
The government coronavirus taskforce said 727 people had died of coronavirus-linked causes in the past 24 hours, pushing the national death toll to 154,601, Reuters reports.
Russia has been in the grip of a surge in cases that authorities blame on the more contagious Delta variant, though some officials have suggested in recent days that cases, at least in Moscow, have started to decline.
Updated
Indonesia’s government has said small businesses and some shopping malls can reopen despite warnings that loosening curbs could spark another Covid wave.
President Joko Widodo said measures imposed in early July would continue until 2 August as the Delta variant spreads across the country, which has been overtaking India and Brazil as the world’s virus epicentre.
Official case rates are down from more than 50,000 a day. But testing rates have also declined, while the number of positive results remains high – suggesting that the virus is still spreading quickly.
But he added that “adjustments” would be made to a shutdown that closed malls, restaurants, parks and offices including in the capital Jakarta, island of Java and on holiday island Bali.
Traditional markets, roadside vendors and ubiquitous open-air restaurants known as warungs would be among businesses allowed to reopen on Monday with restrictions, even in the worst-affected areas.
Shopping malls and mosques in less hard-hit areas would also get the green light to swing open their doors to limited crowds and hours. Offices would remain subject to shutdown orders, the government said.
There have, however, been widespread reports of employers forcing non-essential employees to work even under the current lockdown.
Widodo, pointing to falling daily infection and hospital occupancy rates, said any loosening would be done “gradually and carefully”. The announcement came after Indonesia saw its 24-hour death toll hit a record 1,566 on Friday.
The World Health Organization has called on Indonesia to impose tighter virus curbs. Widodo’s government has been widely criticised over its handling of the pandemic and policies that appeared to prioritise the economy over public health.
Arya Fernandes, a political analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies said:
The government faces a dilemma because it has seen countries that focused on the economy risked their public health, while others that prioritised public health had their economies battered.
So they’re trying to find a win-win solution by imposing restrictions but still keeping the economy open.
Read the full story here:
Updated
Heathrow airport has urged the UK government to reopen travel to fully vaccinated flyers from the EU and US after announcing cumulative losses from the Covid-19 pandemic have hit £2.9bn.
Fewer than 4 million passengers travelled through the west London airport in the first half of the year, PA Media reports. It took just 18 days to reach that total in 2019.
The airport warned that its passenger numbers could be lower this year than in 2020.
Some 22.1 million passengers used the airport in 2020, with more than half of those travelling in January and February, before the virus crisis led to a collapse in demand.
Heathrow described recent changes to the quarantine and testing requirements for people arriving in the UK as “encouraging”, but warned that the rules are “holding back the UK’s economic recovery”.
The airport’s chief executive, John Holland-Kaye, said:
The UK is emerging from the worst effects of the health pandemic, but is falling behind its EU rivals in international trade by being slow to remove restrictions.
Replacing PCR tests with lateral flow tests and opening up to EU and US vaccinated travellers at the end of July will start to get Britain’s economic recovery off the ground.
In an interview on Times Radio, he asked: “Where is the vaccine dividend?”
He noted that EU countries have opened up for travel between each other and from the US.
The Department for Transport has committed to holding a formal review of the traffic light system “no later” than Saturday.
Asked about some arriving passengers facing two-hour queues over the weekend, Holland-Kaye said they were “caught out by a combination of Border Force officers being pinged and some of the e-gates not working”.
He went on:
Most people going through the border at Heathrow are having a very good experience, they’re getting through in a few minutes. That is the norm.
I’d just apologise to those passengers who were caught up on Saturday.
A vast number of people are being “pinged” as Covid contacts by the NHS app, and told to self-isolate.
Heathrow’s revenue dropped from £712m in the first six months of 2020 to £348m in the opening half of this year.
Meanwhile, pre-tax loss widened 18% to a little over £1bn.
Updated
Almost 80% of Singapore’s population will be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 by early September, the city state’s health minister Ong Ye Kung said on Monday.
About 54% of the country had already received both doses of an mRNA vaccine, Ong told parliament.
Singapore has approved vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
Indonesia is expecting to receive 45m more doses of Covid-19 vaccines in August, health minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin told a virtual news conference on Monday.
They will include vaccines from Sinovac, Moderna and Pfizer, he said.
Budi also said that hospital bed occupancies have gone down in its capital city of Jakarta, but are rising outside of Java island, Reuters reports.
Updated
Ho Chi Minh City implements strict overnight curfew
More than 10 million residents of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam will be placed under a strict overnight curfew beginning on Monday, an unprecedented move to curb infections as Vietnam battles a rapid Covid-19 surge, AFP reports.
After successfully containing limited coronavirus outbreaks last year, the communist country is recording increasing infections and deaths fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant.
Hardest hit are the northern industrial centres and Ho Chi Minh City in the south, which has registered more than 62,000 infections since April – making up the bulk of Vietnam’s 101,000 cases.
Authorities have restricted movement in the once-bustling economic hub for more than two months, and imposed a lockdown in early July. Residents are allowed to leave home only for medical emergencies and food.
But beginning on Monday, an additional, strict stay-at-home order will be in effect from 6pm to 6am local time – though authorities refused to use the word “curfew”. No end date was announced for the measure.
“Local law enforcement will need to step up patrols … and issue appropriate penalties for offenders, even detention in cases of resistance,” said city mayor Nguyen Thanh Phong, according to state media.
Almost all public transport links with the city have already been suspended, while travellers originating from the city are required to stay in mandatory quarantine centres for at least two weeks.
More than a third of Vietnam’s 100 million people are under a lockdown, including residents of its capital, Hanoi, in the north.
On Monday, the military drove through major boulevards across the city, spraying disinfectant as they went past historic buildings and Hoan Kiem Lake, a major tourist attraction.
An army officer told AFP that military personnel will continue the disinfection campaign over the next three days.
Vietnam was one of the few economies that expanded last year due to its success in containing the virus during the first wave of the pandemic. But it has been slow to procure and administer vaccines, with just 4.7m doses given so far.
It is also developing its own inoculations and authorities say they hope to reach herd immunity by early 2022.
Updated
British ministers will meet on Monday to sign off additional emergency testing sites for workplaces in England hit hard by the “pingdemic”, so more workers can avoid the requirement to self-isolate for 10 days, amid warnings of mounting chaos across the economy.
Refuse depots and police stations are among the sites being considered for testing centres as the Covid-O cabinet subcommittee meets to discuss how best to avoid disruption of key services by the huge number of people self-isolating due to notifications from the NHS Covid-19 app.
Several councils have said they are reducing bin collections to cope with the surge in staff staying home after coming into contact with a Covid sufferer. But local government insiders suggest the challenges are much wider, hitting social care and many non-statutory services such as libraries. One council leader said it was likely they would only be able to offer a skeleton service in some areas in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, business groups say member companies across sectors from retail to mining are having to shut down core operations because of staff absences.
Unions are reportedly preparing to tell workers to ignore the government’s exemption and stay at home anyway.
Steve Hedley, senior assistant general secretary of the RMT, threatened to launch strike action over the scheme.
Hedley told the Daily Telegraph:
Why should our people be infected with Covid? They are panicking and trying to force our workers back to work, where it’s not safe.
We have discussed the possibility of taking action at a senior level, and I can say that nothing has been ruled out.
Read more here:
Updated
Indonesia’s decision to relax some Covid-19 curbs this week, despite reporting record-high deaths in recent days, is being driven by social and economic concerns rather than epidemiological advice, public health experts said on Monday.
Reuters has this report on the situation there:
As the country grapples with the worst coronavirus outbreak in Asia, president Joko Widodo announced on Sunday that while overall curbs in place since July would be extended for a week, some measures would be eased.
Businesses, including salons, garages, traditional markets and restaurants with outdoor areas will now be allowed to conditionally reopen, while malls will be permitted to operate at 25% capacity outside of designated higher-risk “red zones”.
“The decision doesn’t seem to be related to the pandemic, but to economics,” said Pandu Riono, an epidemiologist at the University of Indonesia, urging people to maintain health protocols.
Hospitals have been filled with patients in the past month, particularly on the densely populated island of Java and in Bali, but the president on Sunday said infections and hospital occupancy had declined, without specifying by how much.
The move to ease some curbs comes as the government has faced pressure from business groups to act to avoid mass layoffs, and with several relatively small-scale street demonstrations last week.
“The problem is that compared to last year the impact of the pandemic, not just on the health sector, but on socio-economic and political aspects is getting bigger by the day because of the Delta variant,” said Dicky Budiman, an epidemiologist at Queensland’s Griffith University.
As the Delta variant, first identified in India, has spread across Indonesia cases have surged to the highest levels since the start of the pandemic.
South-east Asia’s biggest economy posted a record of more than 56,000 daily cases in mid-July, and while reported case numbers have dipped slightly Indonesia registered record-high Covid-19 deaths on four days last week.
But with more than 50% of Indonesians employed in the informal sector and with limited financial support and mounting pandemic fatigue, the government has few choices, says Budiman.
“Is it the correct decision? Based on the epidemiological situation, no. But then the government doesn’t have any option because of the complexity of the situation.”
I’m Nicola Slawson and I’m taking over from Helen. Do drop me an email on nicola.slawson@theguardian.com or find me on Twitter (@Nicola_Slawson) if you think I’ve missed anything or if you have any questions.
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Virtual contact during the pandemic made many over-60s feel lonelier and more depressed than no contact at all, research has found.
Many older people stayed in touch with family and friends during lockdown using the phone, video calls, and other forms of virtual contact. Zoom choirs, online book clubs and virtual bedtime stories with grandchildren helped many stave off isolation.
But the study, among the first to comparatively assess social interactions across households and mental wellbeing during the pandemic, found many older people experienced a greater increase in loneliness and long-term mental health disorders as a result of the switch to online socialising than those who spent the pandemic on their own.
“We were surprised by the finding that an older person who had only virtual contact during lockdown experienced greater loneliness and negative mental health impacts than an older person who had no contact with other people at all,” said Dr Yang Hu of Lancaster University, who co-wrote the report, published on Monday in Frontiers in Sociology:
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More than 450 key workers with long Covid have told a cross-party parliamentary inquiry of their experiences of the condition, including struggles to return to work and lack of financial support, with one in 10 having lost their job.
Nurses, teachers, GPs, police officers and midwives were among those who shared their experience of long Covid, symptoms of which include debilitating fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pains, sleeping difficulties and brain fog.
One in five of the 460 key workers who responded to the call for evidence by the all party parliamentary group (APPG) on coronavirus said they had been off work for a year or more as a result long Covid, 30% for between six months and a year, and 25% for between three and six months:
France adopts vaccine passports law
France’s parliament voted to make vaccine passports a key part of daily life in the battle against Covid-19 on Sunday, after a compromise between lawmakers from the upper and lower houses, AFP reports.
The breakthrough in talks came a day after France was again shaken by protests against the rules that saw over 160,000 rally and dozens arrested.
President Emmanuel Macron last week ordered that the health pass - proof of full vaccination or a negative test - would be required for the French to visit venues such as cinemas or nightclubs.
The announcement was a move by Macron to make vaccinations the top weapon against Covid-19 as new variants emerge, essentially requiring people to become vaccinated if they want to continue daily routines.
Those changes were implemented by decree, but parliament has been engaged in a marathon session since Tuesday debating whether to extend them.
China reports highest cases since January
China reported 76 new Covid cases on 25 July, the highest since the end of January amid a surge of local infections in the eastern city of Nanjing, as it starts a second round of mass testing to contain the outbreak.
Reuters: China has taken a zero-tolerance approach to cases, quickly tracing and testing wide swathes of its population to prevent the spread of the virus.
Local infections accounted for 40 of the new cases, compared with only five a day earlier, the National Health Commission said in a statement on Monday.
Thirty-nine of the local cases were reported in the eastern province of Jiangsu, of which Nanjing is the capital, and one in the northeastern province of Liaoning, it said.
The number of new asymptomatic cases - which China does not classify as confirmed cases - rose to 24 from 17 cases a day earlier.
Among the symptomless cases, four were local infections - one in Jiangsu, one in Guangdong, one in Jiangsu’s neighbouring province of Anhui, and one in Sichuan province.
Many of the positive cases in the first round of testing Nanjing launched last week were in an area close to the Lukou International Airport.
Nanjing was conducting a second round of nucleic acid testing of its 9.3 million residents on Sunday, the official China Daily said on Monday.
The city raised its Covid risk level in one area to high, while changing other areas to a medium risk level, the paper added. The move comes after it suspended its subway line and took other measures to control the new cluster.
Total confirmed cases in mainland China stand at 92,605, and the death toll remains at 4,636.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.
China reported 76 new cases on 25 July, the highest since the end of January amid a surge of local infections in the eastern city of Nanjing, as it starts a second round of mass testing to contain the outbreak.
Meanwhile France’s parliament voted to make vaccine passports a key part of daily life on Sunday, after a compromise between lawmakers from the upper and lower houses.
The breakthrough in talks came a day after France was again shaken by protests against the rules that saw over 160,000 rally and dozens arrested.
Here are the key developments over the weekend:
- UK health secretary Sajid Javid has apologised for a tweet which suggested the nation need not “cower” from coronavirus.
- In the UK, it is being reported that only fully-vaccinated football fans may be able to attend Premier League matches and other events with more than 20,000 spectators from October under government plans
- Young people are getting “seriously ill” from Covid-19, a member of the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has warned, as he urged them to get vaccinated.
- In Australia, New South Wales logged its second-highest daily increase of the year in locally acquired Covid-19 cases on Sunday amid fears of a wave of new infections after thousands of people joined an anti-lockdown protest.
- Malaysia’s total coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic surpassed 1 million on Sunday after the country’s health ministry reported a record 17,045 new cases.
- Russia reported 24,072 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, including 3,406 in Moscow, taking the official national tally since the pandemic began to 6,126,541.
- South Korea is to tighten social distancing rules across most of the country this week, warning that its worst-ever Covid-19 wave might spread further in the summer holiday season.
- Fresh concerns have been raised in the UK over police being forced into isolation over Covid-19 contacts after it was said the number of absent Metropolitan Police officers reached nearly one in five.
- Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike met on Sunday to discuss the Olympic Games being held in the capital and anti-coronavirus measures.
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