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Israeli Health Ministry experts recommended on Thursday dropping from 60 to 50 the minimum age of eligibility for a Covid-19 vaccine booster, hoping to curb a rise in Delta variant infections.
The advisory panel’s move, which followed a call by the prime minister Naftali Bennett to expand Israel’s booster campaign, still has to be approved by the Health Ministry’s director.
But at least two major health providers have already said they would begin on Friday to schedule appointments for people in the 50-59 age group to get a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
After a successful vaccination campaign launched in late 2020 in which around 60% of the population have received two shots of the Pfizer vaccine, new daily cases dropped from more than 10,000 in January to single digits in June.
But with the spread of the Delta variant across the globe, new infections jumped in Israel, reaching 5,946 on Monday, and serious illnesses have been increasing as well.
Israelis aged 60 and up began receiving the booster two weeks ago, effectively turning Israel into a testing ground before any third-dose approval by the US Food and Drug Administration.
More than 700,000 seniors in Israel have received their third shot.
“I commend the team of experts on treating pandemics for making the right decision for the health of the citizens of Israel,” Bennett said in a statement late on Thursday. “I call on everyone over 50 to get in line tomorrow morning. Go get vaccinated.”
An initial survey has shown that most people who received a third vaccine dose felt similar or fewer side effects than they did after receiving the second shot.
British Columbia is mandating Covid vaccines for all staff working in long-term care homes and assisted living facilities, officials announced on Thursday, becoming one of the first Canadian provinces to do so, to fight a rapid rise in cases.
Canadian provinces have resisted mandating vaccines for any population thus far, but a burgeoning fourth wave is causing many business groups and professional associations to push for mandatory vaccinations as a way to avoid further lockdowns.
The prime minister Justin Trudeau said last week that the government was considering mandating vaccines for federal employees.
Staff must be fully vaccinated by 12 October as a condition of employment, British Columbia’s health minister Adrian Dix said at a briefing on Thursday, pointing to an increase in the number of outbreaks in the long-term care system in recent weeks.
“Those outbreaks are not qualitatively the same as they were in the months of January and February,” Dix said. “Nonetheless they are disruptive. ... This is a necessary step to protect residents and to protect staff in long-term care.”
Canada’s westernmost province currently has one of the highest rates of Covid cases per capita in the country, according to government data. The province reported 536 new cases on Wednesday.
The province currently has eight outbreaks in long-term care homes that were caused by unvaccinated people, health officer Bonnie Henry said.
The province of Quebec announced on Tuesday that it would bar unvaccinated people from nonessential public spaces, including bars, restaurants and gyms, as of 1 September, making it the first province to implement vaccine passports.
The UK’s competition watchdog said it is ready to help the government take rapid action against Covid testing companies if it finds they are breaching consumer law, amid rising concerns about rip-off pricing and unreturned or delayed results.
In a statement published on Thursday afternoon, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) set out the details of its previously announced investigation into the market, and said it was also looking at whether the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) could take any action to improve matters in the short term.
“This is a particularly pressing issue just now for families hoping to enjoy a well-earned holiday after such a difficult year, and for those reuniting with friends and relatives overseas,” the CMA’s senior director of consumer protection, George Lusty, said.
“That is why we are also providing ongoing support to DHSC, including on steps that could be considered in the interim, before the rest of our work on the PCR testing market is concluded.”
The CMA said at the weekend it would provide advice and intelligence on the market in PCR tests within the next month to the health secretary, Sajid Javid, to enable the government to act.
Thursday’s statement set out three areas the watchdog is exploring: whether individual providers may be breaching consumer law and should be subject to enforcement action; whether there are structural problems in the market affecting price and reliability; and whether there are immediate actions the government can take.
It has opted for a rapid review because a formal investigation, which could lead to criminal action, would take months to complete, so that its impact would come long after the key holiday season.
Full story here:
Updated
San Francisco announced on Thursday that proof of full vaccination would be required for entry to restaurants, gyms and other indoor venues, aiming to curb a new wave of Covid infections that has prompted public health mandates across the US.
San Francisco, which launches its mandate on 20 August, is the second major US city to pass a sweeping vaccine requirement for indoor businesses after New York, which only requires proof of one vaccination dose.
The vaccine mandates in two liberal cities have come as schools in some conservative states are fighting to require masks, going against their Republicans governors’ orders.
Houston’s public schools were expected on Thursday to defy a state ban on mask mandates, joining other districts in Texas and Florida requiring face coverings in classrooms to fight a surge of infections, despite threats from state leadership.
The board of the Houston Independent School District was due to vote on a mask mandate on Thursday, flouting Republican governor Greg Abbott’s ban on such rules.
“The health and safety of our students and staff continues to be our guiding compass in all of our decisions,” wrote the district’s superintendent, Millard House II, in a statement.
The measure is likely to pass, with a majority of board members expressing support for the mandate, the Houston Chronicle reported.
With the start of the academic year coinciding with a dire new wave of cases, schools have quickly become the focal point of the nation’s political fight over masking and vaccine mandates.
The threat by Florida to withhold the salaries of school officials who require masks has escalated tension between the governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and the administration of the US president Joe Biden, a Democrat.
The White House is considering reimbursing Florida school officials if DeSantis, who is widely seen as weighing a potential 2024 challenge for the presidency, follows through on his threat.
The worst of the Covid outbreak is concentrated in the South, including Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and Texas, where intensive care units have been stretched to capacity.
While flouting federal recommendations on masks, Florida has asked Washington to help by sending ventilators.
Every adult in the world could get a Covid-19 vaccine if the wealth billionaires collected during the pandemic was taxed 99% once, according to an analysis published on Thursday by several groups that advocate for economic equity.
This one-time tax on the world’s 2,690 billionaires could also cover $20,000 in cash paid to all unemployed workers, according to the analysis by Oxfam, the Fight Inequality Alliance, the Institute for Policy Studies and the Patriotic Millionaires.
That tax would still leave the billionaires with $55bn more than they had before the pandemic, the analysis said.
Morris Pearl, the former managing director of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said in a statement countries could no longer bear “the surge in global billionaire wealth as millions of people have lost their lives and livelihoods”.
Pearl, now the chair of Patriotic Millionaires, a group of wealthy people who support higher taxes on the wealthy, said governments have historically used wealth taxes after crises to help communities rebuild.
“Our economies are choking on this hoarded resource that could be serving a much greater purpose,” Pearl said. “Billionaires need to cough up that cash ball – and governments need to make them do it by taxing their wealth.”
The full story is here:
Updated
Good evening from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Today so far...
- US regulators are reportedly set to recommend a third shot for people with certain immune-compromising conditions, following pressure from Pfizer. Dr Anthony Fauci said for other vaccinated groups, such as elderly people, data is being collected to determine if or when their protection goes “below a critical level” and “that’s when you’re going to be hearing about the implementation of boosters” for others.
- The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is planning a snap election for 20 September ostensibly to seek voter approval for the government’s costly plans to respond to the pandemic, according to sources cited by Reuters. The Liberals plan to inject an extra C$100 billion - between 3% and 4% of GDP - into the economy over the next three years.
- Israel is to require Covid tests from next week for children as young as three to enter schools, swimming pools, hotels or gyms as infections rise despite extensive adult vaccinations. The country already required children aged 12 and over to show a green pass after they were reintroduced late last month, showing a person’s vaccination and testing status and whether they had recovered from Covid.
- French police were urged to step up security around Covid vaccination and testing centres after a spate of attacks and vandalism. As France prepares for a fifth weekend of demonstrations against the health pass, the interior minister wrote to police chiefs calling for greater vigilance. A number of health sites have been sprayed with swastikas or graffiti reading “collabos” (collaborators), “Nazi” or “genocide”, or yellow stars.
- A 99% emergency tax on the startling levels of profit made by billionaires during the pandemic could pay for everyone to get vaccinated and provide a £14,000 cash grant to all unemployed workers, according to a new analysis. Anti-inequality groups said a one-time levy could raise £4tn and still collectively leave the world’s 2,690 billionaires £40bn richer than before March 2020.
- Air passengers to the UK have spent at least £500m on PCR Covid-19 tests from private companies since mid-May, only for the NHS to be saddled with extra costs when firms fail to deliver them. Travellers have reported having to call the NHS testing hotline on 119 for free taxpayer-funded kits after PCR tests they had paid for did not arrive.
- The England and Wales Cricket Board warned that the integrity of the upcoming Ashes series was at stake unless the Australian authorities softened the nation’s hard-line stance over its strict quarantine rules, with around 38,000 Australian nationals remaining stranded abroad and unable to return home.
- Jacinda Ardern said that New Zealand would continue to pursue its ambitious Covid-19 elimination strategy indefinitely, even though a leading expert said this week that reaching herd immunity is “not a possibility” since the vaccines do not stop the spread of Covid.
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Symptoms of depression and anxiety symptoms among children and adolescents during the pandemic may have doubled, compared with pre-2020 estimates, a meta-analysis of 29 studies including 80,879 younger people around the world suggested.
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A McDonald’s franchise in California settled with a group of workers who sued after they were allegedly provided dog nappies to wear as masks, before a Covid outbreak among staff and subsequently their families.
Federal and state authorities in Australia were warned two weeks ago that an online app hosted on Russian servers was being used to generate fraudulent Covid check-in confirmations and bypass government contact-tracing systems.
Ministers, civil service leaders and employers are “wrongheaded” to be trying to make people come back to the office against their will, and should not be standing in the way of progress around working from home, Keir Starmer has said.
Speaking to the Guardian, the Labour leader said it was wrong for people to be forced back into offices when it was the government that had asked them to work from home in the first place, especially if they were being threatened with pay cuts or the loss of London weighting from their salaries.
He said that this “misses a deeper understanding of what the pandemic has done to change our society”, as the move to more flexibility had been one of the few good things to have come out of the last 18 months.
As a bewildered UK blinks in the tentative daylight of freedom, after nearly a year and a half of unprecedented restrictions, a wider struggle to restore our sacred freedoms is surely overdue, writes Guardian columnist Owen Jones.
The government’s focus on law-breaking during the pandemic – rather than greater financial support for self-isolation or the hiking of a statutory sick pay that remains among the lowest of the rich countries – is further evidence of its authoritarian credentials.
More disturbingly, the government’s policing bill puts lockdown-era authoritarianism on a permanent footing, enabling the police to suppress protests in England and Wales that are deemed noisy or a nuisance – which is built into the very function of the democratic right to protest.
We were promised “freedom day” in England, but ours is a society wrapped in chains. Rather than loosening them, we should demand their removal altogether.
In Northern Ireland, the first minister Paul Givan has said he would have liked the the executive to have moved further around some of the restrictions on hospitality, particularly the continuing requirement for table service only.
We’re looking at weighing up everything in the round so there are changes that I would have liked to see taken further today, particularly around hospitality.
I know when it comes to the ability to stand up, the removal of the table service, where people are having to be seated and to be served their food, has an increased cost in terms of the staffing of that, and that’s something that I wanted to see lifted today.
Other colleagues in different parties didn’t take that approach, so we then had to find consensus and we ultimately were able to agree on quite a wide range of areas, but yes there were areas that I would like to have seen further progress made.
According to PA Media, Givan expressed hope that all remaining regulations could be removed by the end of September.
He said Northern Ireland had to move away from trying to regulate its way out of the pandemic, with greater reliance instead placed on guidance, best practice and personal responsibility.
Certainly from my party’s perspective, we’re getting to the point where personal responsibility, taking informed decisions at an individual level is how we need to address this.
The justification to have regulations in place for this is diminishing and I don’t believe it is proportionate. But that’s something that the executive will come to an agreed position on over the next number of weeks.
The helicopter-taxi firm Blade Air Mobility, which ferries people to luxury destinations such as the Hamptons, has mandated that starting next month its passengers be inoculated. Reuters reports:
Eligible passengers should be fully vaccinated at least two weeks prior to their flight, with some exceptions such as departures from Florida, the company said.
Blade, which charges about $795 per seat for a one-way helicopter ride from New York to the Hamptons, added that it may refuse service to any passenger who does not provide a proof of vaccination. The company also operates flights between New York and Manhattan heliports.
The New York-based company was among a raft of transportation firms, that went public through a merger with a blank-check firm. The company was valued at a pro-forma equity value of $825m at closing.
US airlines have not mandated the Covid-19 vaccine for passengers as yet. But, last week, United Airlines became the first US airline to require Covid-19 vaccinations for all domestic employees.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is planning a snap election for 20 September to seek voter approval for the government’s costly plans to respond to the pandemic, according to sources cited by Reuters.
Trudeau is set to make the announcement on Sunday, said anonymous sources. Trudeau aides have said for months that the ruling Liberals would push for a vote before the end of 2021, two years ahead of schedule.
Trudeau only has a minority government and relies on other parties to push through legislation, Reuters reports. The Liberals racked up record levels of debt as they spent heavily to shield individuals and businesses from Covid-19. They plan to inject an extra C$100 billion - between 3% and 4% of GDP - into the economy over the next three years.
Trudeau came to power in 2015 with a majority of the 338 seats in the House of Commons, but in 2019 he was reduced to a minority after old photos emerged of him wearing blackface.
Updated
The world’s appetite for oil will be lower than expected this year as the ongoing spread of the coronavirus Delta variant continues to drag on global economies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The global watchdog has slashed its oil demand forecasts for the rest of this year and predicted that crude supplies may outstrip demand next year to leave a glut of unwanted oil in the market.
It said its forecasts for oil consumption in the second half of the year had been “appreciably downgraded” and would fall below its early forecasts by more than 500,000 barrels a day.
Growth for the second half of 2021 has been downgraded more sharply, as new Covid-19 restrictions imposed in several major oil consuming countries, particularly in Asia, look set to reduce mobility and oil use. We now estimate that demand fell in July as the rapid spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant undermined deliveries in China, Indonesia and other parts of Asia.
The Associated Press reports that changes introduced during the pandemic appear to show that it is safe to relax restrictions on methadone, the oldest and most stigmatised treatment drug for opioid addiction.
Last spring, with coronavirus shutting down the nation, the US government told methadone clinics they could allow stable patients to take their medicine at home unsupervised.
Early research shows it did not lead to surges of methadone overdoses or illegal sales. And the phone counselling that went along with take-home doses worked better for some people, helping them stay in recovery and get on with their lives.
US health officials are studying the changes, their impact and how they might be continued.
Since the 1970s, rigid rules have guided methadone treatment, requiring most people to line up and take the liquid medicine, sipping it from small cups, while watched by employees at clinics. Only long-term patients were allowed to take home more than a day’s dose.
Now, scientists are gathering information to put those rules — never rigorously tested — under scrutiny.
“It took a pandemic to change the climate to allow us to actually study it,” said Dr. Ayana Jordan of Yale University School of Medicine, who is among researchers studying the methadone rule changes. “If we roll these policies back post-Covid, it’s going to be devastating.”
The England and Wales Cricket Board is “very confident” this winter’s Ashes series will go ahead as planned despite continuing negotiations over Covid travel restrictions, according to the ECB’s chief executive, Tom Harrison.
PA reports that England players are concerned about the possibility of families being unable to join them on the trip given Australia’s tight border controls, as well as the prospect of lengthy quarantines and restrictive bubble environments.
Talks involving the Professional Cricketers’ Association have been going on for some time and, while Harrison admitted there were plenty of complications before a final green light could be given, he suggested the necessary exemptions would be attained.
We are working very closely with Cricket Australia and I had my latest conversation with my counterpart at CA yesterday, we are speaking every few days on this matter. All the right conversations are happening at government level in Australia, and we will be using our own diplomatic channels in the UK to ensure that the view of the players and the ECB [is heard]. This is not players asking for anything unreasonable, these are very reasonable requests that we are asking the Australian government to give some leniency, frankly.
UK reports 94 Covid-linked deaths and 33,074 new cases
The UK has reported another 94 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test result, down from 104 reported yesterday.
Reported positive lab-confirmed cases have risen from 29,612 to 33,074, meaning the weekly average is up 8.6% on the seven days prior.
It comes after the daily reported Covid-related deaths reached its highest level since March on Tuesday, at 146 – the highest since 175 were recorded on 12 March.
Latest statistics for excess deaths show rates have continued to remain stable and mostly below average since the end of winter in England.
For the week ending 30 July, of 9,487 total deaths over seven days there were 389 fatalities in which Covid was mentioned on the death certificate. Of the total deaths, 843 were statistically unexpected, and 516 of those were aged 75 and above.
Experts will continue to monitor trends following the relaxation of the remaining restrictions in the UK.
Earlier this week, Prof Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia, said the way infections are reported needed to change as the reported statistics do not necessarily reflect Covid’s impact.
“We need to be moving towards reporting hospital admissions that are admitted because of Covid, not because they just happen to be positive and they’re being admitted for something else,” he told MPs
“Otherwise as the infection becomes endemic we are going to be frightening ourselves with very high numbers that actually don’t translate into disease burden.”
Updated
More than 70% of 18- to 29-year-olds in England have received first jab
Over 70% of young people aged 18 to 29 in England have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, the government has said.
A total of 5,940,038 people in this age group have received a first dose (70.2%) and of those 2,683,434 people have received both doses (32.4%).
The latest data from Public Health England and Cambridge University shows that vaccines have saved around 84,600 lives as well as preventing 23.4m infections and 66,900 hospitalisations in England up to 6 August, it said.
The health and social care secretary, Sajid Javid, said:
It’s fantastic that 7 in 10 young people in England have now received their first dose. The vaccines are already making a big difference for this age group and are building a wall of defence against Covid-19 which is allowing us to safely live with this virus. Vaccines can prevent you from catching the virus or passing it on to your friends and family, and reduce the severity of the symptoms if you do catch it.”
Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said:
Tens of millions of people have now received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, across thousands of sites in the UK. With 70% of young people in England now vaccinated with at least one dose, we are well on our way to protecting the entire adult population.”
Updated
Symptoms of depression and anxiety symptoms among children and adolescents during the pandemic may have doubled, compared with pre-2020 estimates, a meta-analysis of 29 studies including 80,879 younger people around the world suggests.
“The Covid-19 pandemic, and its associated restrictions and consequences, appear to have taken a considerable toll on youth and their psychological well-being,” researchers reported in the paper published by Jama.
Loss of peer interactions, social isolation, and reduced contact with buffering supports (eg, teachers, coaches) may have precipitated these increases. In addition, schools are often a primary location for receiving psychological services, with 80% of children relying on school-based services to address their mental health needs. For many children, these services were rendered unavailable owing to school closures.
One possibility is that ongoing social isolation, family financial difficulties, missed milestones, and school disruptions are compounding over time for youth and having a cumulative association. However, longitudinal research supporting this possibility is currently scarce and urgently needed.
England case rates rise among all groups except 10- to 19-year-olds
Case rates in England have risen among all age groups except 10 to 19-year-olds, Public Health England has said.
The highest rate is among 20- to 29-year-olds, with 670.7 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to August 8, up week-on-week from 628.6.
The second highest rate is among 10- to 19-year-olds, down from 515.4 to 456.1. The lowest rate is among people aged 80 and over: 66.6, up slightly from 65.0.
Case rates have risen in all regions of England except the north-east, the regular surveillance report also showed.
The BBC’s health editor has also tweeted that according to the Department of Health, over 70% of young people in England aged 18 to 29 have been vaccinated with a first dose.
Dr Yvonne Doyle, medical director for Public Health England, said:
Data suggests that Covid-19 cases are currently stable, although rates remain high across the country. Vaccines are breaking the link between infections and serious illness, and on Monday the rules will change so that those who have been double jabbed for at least two weeks, or are under 18, don’t need to isolate if they are a close contact.
Even if you have had both doses, if you are a close contact you should still get a PCR test as soon as you can and consider wearing a face covering in enclosed spaces, and limiting contact with other people, especially with anyone who is clinically extremely vulnerable.
Meanwhile, Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents health trusts in England, said the NHS is running “incredibly fast” to “stand still or go slightly backwards” as it attempts to tackle the backlog of patients caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme, Hopson said:
I think the important thing to understand is that there are two things going on at once. One is that the NHS is actually running really fast at the moment - we performed 84,000 more diagnostic tests in July than the previous month, and that’s the highest number over the last year.
We’ve actually increased the number of people who have been checked for cancer in June to 230,000, and that’s the second highest figure on record, so we are running really fast thanks to the effort of frontline staff. The second point is that because there were people who didn’t come forward and patients whose treatment got delayed (by lockdowns), then what is happening is we are adding to the waiting list.
So we’re in this bizarre sensation of running incredibly fast to basically either stand still or go slightly backwards, and that’s the problem for the NHS.
Updated
A Northern Irish teaching graduate is ineligible to receive a Covid vaccination certification because he did not receive both jabs in the nation.
The BBC reports that Conor Kernohan – who is due to fly to Italy next week to take up a teaching job – got his first Pfizer vaccine while studying in Liverpool in May, and his second dose in Belfast.
The Department of Health reportedly said the issue of data sharing was being discussed between the UK’s vaccination programmes and certification systems, and “an agreed way forward” should be put in place this week.
After “spending days” ringing the “CovidCert NI” application helpline, the 22-year-old Kernohan was eventually told he could not receive a certificate “as there was no process in place for his information to be shared across the two health systems”.
He told the BBC:
They said there was nothing that could be done because there had been no agreement made between England and Northern Ireland. It’s quite frustrating because I wasn’t told when I went to get my second vaccine in Belfast that it would be a problem. When I was in Liverpool the students and young people were encouraged to get the vaccine.
I’m due to fly on Tuesday and I’ll start work the following Monday after a five day quarantine. I’m kind of at my wits end. If I was even told a time scale, like two or three weeks, that might settle me a bit more and give me scope to tell my future employers this will be sorted.
Air passengers to the UK have spent at least £500m on PCR Covid-19 tests from private companies since mid-May, a Guardian analysis has found, only for the NHS to be saddled with extra costs when firms fail to deliver them.
My colleagues Rob Davies and Sarah Butler report that concern is mounting that the system for testing travellers is on the brink of collapse, with Heathrow airport calling on Wednesday for the government to allow people to use cheaper lateral flow tests instead.
Travellers have reported having to call the NHS testing hotline on 119 for free taxpayer-funded kits after PCR tests they had paid for did not arrive.
Sandra Parrish, a nurse, said she had been told by NHS Test & Trace to call 119 when tests she ordered from Luxembourg-based Eurofins did not arrive on time.
Her day 8 test, ordered from the same company, was also delayed. Sandra said she had asked for a refund from Eurofins after spending £80 with them, but has yet to receive one.
“When the test didn’t turn up, [Test & Trace said] dial 119 and it was sent from the NHS. All that resource used and we had already paid all that money.”
In the end, she paid for a day 5 test in order to go back to work sooner, spending £180 in total. She said: “I got a Covid bonus for working for the NHS – after tax it was less than that.”
Updated
A McDonald’s franchise in California has settled with a group of workers who sued after they were allegedly provided dog nappies to wear as masks, before a Covid outbreak among staff and subsequently their families.
The New York Times reports that the franchise owner has agreed to enforce a variety of policies to improve safety, including physical distancing, contact tracing and paid sick leave. It comes after staff at the fast food restaurant were also allegedly given masks made from coffee filters.
“We were being treated like dogs — giving us dog diapers to use as masks. We are not dogs,” Angely Rodriguez Lambert, a former worker at the McDonald’s and one of the plaintiffs, told the NYT.
Michael Smith, who owns and operates the store, denied all the accusations. The settlement did not involve any admission of wrongdoing. It was unclear whether the settlement included compensation, which the original complaint had sought.
Antibodies triggered by Sinovac Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine decline below a key threshold from around six months after a second dose for most recipients, but a third shot had a strong booster effect, a lab study has showed.
Reuters reports that Chinese researchers reported the findings from a study of blood samples from healthy adults aged between 18-59 in a paper published this week, but which has not been peer reviewed.
Among participants who received two doses, two or four weeks apart, only 16.9% and 35.2% respectively still had neutralising antibodies above a threshold set by researchers, below which the antibody level is considered low or undetectable, six months after the second shot, the paper said.
Those readings were based on data from two cohorts involving more than 50 participants each, while the study gave third doses of the vaccine or placebo to a total of 540 participants.
Researchers said it was unclear how the decrease in antibodies would affect the shot’s effectiveness, since scientists have yet to figure out precisely the threshold of antibody levels for a vaccine to be able to prevent the disease.
Apart from durable antibodies, other components in humans immune systems such as T cells and B cell memory elicited by the vaccine may also contribute to protection, researchers involved in the study said, although the study did not provide data on those factors.
Participants in some cohorts who received a third dose of the Sinovac shot about six months after the second showed around a 3-5 fold increase in antibody levels after a further 28 days, compared with the levels seen four weeks after the second shot, according to Reuters.
The study was conducted by researchers at disease control authorities in Jiangsu province, Sinovac, and other Chinese institutions.
As of the end-June, Sinovac has delivered more than 1bn doses of the vaccine, a major vaccination tool in China, Brazil, Indonesia and Chile.
Updated
Fauci: boosters required because Covid jabs do not provide 'indefinite' protection
Dr Anthony Fauci has told NBC’s Today show that he expects the booster recommendation to come “imminently” for previously vaccinated people with weakened immune systems.
People have compromised immune systems for a variety of reasons, including organ transplants, cancer or other conditions. Any authorization for an additional booster shot would come from the Federal Drug Administration.
Fauci said for other vaccinated groups, such as elderly people, data is being collected to determine if or when their protection goes “below a critical level” and “that’s when you’re going to be hearing about the implementation of boosters” for others.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert said “at this moment, other than the immune compromised, we’re not going to be giving boosters”.
He added “inevitably there will be a time when we’ll have to get boosts” because “no vaccine, at least not within this category, is going to have an indefinite amount of protection”.
Updated
US regulators reportedly to recommend booster shot for some immune compromised groups
On the topic of booster jabs, US regulators are reportedly set to recommend a third shot for people with certain immune-compromising conditions later today, following pressure from Pfizer.
The New York Times reports that about 3% of people in the US have weakened immune systems for various reasons, from a history of cancer to the use of certain medicines such as steroids.
It cites a recent Canadian study that suggested a third dose of the Moderna vaccine improved immune responses. But many scientists and public health experts say boosters cannot be justified by current data, and the World Health Organization has said people with no access to vaccines elsewhere in the world should be prioritised to avoid further “unethical” rollouts.
Nor is there convincing data yet to determine whether protection against the virus is enhanced by mixing and matching different vaccine platforms for Covid, Dr Dan Barouch, a virologist at Beth Israel Deaconess medical center in Boston who worked with Johnson & Johnson as it developed its vaccine, told the NYT.
Any recommendation by the Food and Drug Administration would be subsequently considered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said earlier this month: “I understand the concern of all governments to protect their people from the Delta variant. But we cannot and we should not accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccine using even more of it while the world’s most vulnerable people remain unprotected.”
Updated
A Sydney school for children and young adults on the autism spectrum is now linked to 18 cases of Covid, including seven students who have caught the virus.
Giant Steps, in Gladesville, provides education to autistic children and young adults from kindergarten to year 12. The school, which was still not listed on the New South Wales Health list of exposure sites, shut on Thursday last week after a staff member tested positive. All staff and students were directed to self-isolate until further notice.
Cambodia has become the latest country to offer coronavirus vaccine booster shots, despite the World Health Organization calling for jabs to instead be diverted to countries unable to seriously begin rollouts, amid a lack of efficacy evidence for third shots.
The south-east Asian country is offering the AstraZeneca vaccine as a third shot to those who have received the inactivated virus vaccines developed by Sinopharm and Sinovac, with the aim of bolstering immunity against the Delta variant, Reuters reports.
Last month, the WHO chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, called the mix and match strategy a “dangerous trend”, saying: “We are in a bit of a data-free, evidence-free zone as far as ‘mix-and-match’.”
But earlier today, the UK government adviser Prof Danny Altmann said “a bit of mix and match for the boosters is always going to be a good idea” for maximising the chances of getting a good immune response.
He added that Sinovac, the vaccine developed in China, is “kind of near the bottom of the pile” in terms of antibody levels and efficacy, and that the data for mixing mRNA vaccines with AstraZeneca “looks absolutely super”.
Cambodia, population 16 million, has recorded nearly 84,000 cases and more than 1,600 deaths related to the coronavirus. It has administered at least one vaccine dose to half of its population.
Updated
French police have been urged to step up security around Covid vaccination and testing centres after a spate of attacks and vandalism in the last month.
As France prepares for a fifth weekend of demonstrations against the health pass, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has written to police chiefs calling for greater vigilance. French media reported that the request had come directly from Emmanuel Macron.
It came after the ministry reported that 22 health sites had been vandalised, including five test centres, 15 vaccination centres, a medical laboratory and a health centre, since 12 July.
A number were sprayed with swastikas or graffiti reading “collabos” (collaborators), “Nazi” or “genocide”, or yellow stars.
The vandalism has mostly occurred during demonstrations against the pass sanitaire, a document people must present to prove they are either fully vaccinated, have tested negative for Covid-19 or have recovered from the coronavirus, in order to be allowed access to a number of public venues, including cinemas, restaurants, bars and swimming pools.
Protesters claim the health pass is a threat to personal and civil liberties. More extreme attacks have likened the government to second world war fascists and the pass to the Nazi treatment of Jews.
Updated
AFP reports from an almost empty Covid-19 vaccination centre in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where just 15% of the population of 6.9m people has been fully vaccinated, far below the EU average of 53.3%.
“Absolutely not!” said 45-year-old construction worker Georgy Dragoev, when asked by AFP if he would get vaccinated. “I think that they’re just spreading panic ... If this coronavirus exists and I catch it, I will somehow manage to beat it.”
A recent Gallup poll suggested that 41.8% of Bulgarians do not plan to get jabbed. AFP reports that even some of those who came to get vaccinated have had their reservations.
Accountant Katerina Nikolova, 39, told AFP that it “was not an easy decision” for her, saying the expedited clinical trial procedure for the Covid-19 vaccines worried her.
Health minister Katsarov has partly blamed Bulgarians’ “susceptibility to conspiracy theories” for the low vaccine uptake but Nikolova said she was also confused by the conflicting views of experts invited on TV.
One of the voices invited to contribute to television debates, Atanas Mangarov, is infectious diseases associate professor and the head of the Covid-19 care unit at a Sofia hospital but has spread discredited theories on the virus, insisting mask-wearing and vaccines aren’t necessary and promoting herbal teas as a treatment.
According to Parvan Simeonov from Gallup International, the scepticism towards vaccines also reflects Bulgarians’ “resentment towards elites” and broader mistrust of authorities and official information.
According to official data, Bulgaria has registered just under 430,000 cases of coronavirus infection but experts and health authorities say this is an underestimate, while there have also been 18,306 Covid-related deaths.
Updated
For months they’ve organised rallies, recorded countless hours of video and penned blog posts. But Covid deniers in Spain – where the rate of vaccination ranks among the highest in the EU – have conceded that they have had little success in rallying people to their cause.
“When you realise that there is no critical mass here, you wonder what you’re doing all this for,” Fernando Vizcaíno, one of the country’s best-known Covid deniers, told newspaper El Periódico. “Success is what is happening in France – people there do take to the streets. Not here,” he added.
Another prominent voice, Sonia Vescovacci, told the paper of her constant disappointment with the turnout at rallies. “Organising a demonstration takes a long time. Then when you arrive and only find a handful of people, you say to yourself: madre mia, what a disaster.”
More than 61% of Spain’s population is fully vaccinated, reflecting one of the highest rates among large EU countries.
Researchers have pointed to a variety of factors to explain the low rates of vaccine hesitancy in Spain, from the 55% of people aged 25 to 29 who still live with their parents to the deep trust many have in the health care system.
Israel to mandate Covid tests for children aged three and above
Israel is to require Covid tests from next week for children as young as three to enter schools, swimming pools, hotels or gyms as infections rise despite extensive adult vaccinations.
The country already required children aged 12 and over to show a green pass after they were reintroduced late last month, showing a person’s vaccination and testing status and whether they had recovered from Covid, AFP reports.
Prime minister Naftali Bennett said from next Wednesday the state would fund unlimited tests for children aged three to 11. The Magen David Adom emergency service said it had opened 120 rapid antigen testing centres nationwide.
Screening at these stations costs 52 shekels (around €17) and allows those tested to obtain a green pass valid for 24 hours.
Bennett also announced that Israel was also considering lowering the age limit for its campaign of booster vaccinations, currently offered only to those aged 60 and over.
The booster vaccinations offered by Israel and some other countries have drawn criticism from the World Health Organization, which has said the global priority should be providing the standard inoculation to all, while research remains unclear on their efficacy.
Updated
Limits on public gatherings will be tightened in the Finnish capital due to rising cases, though hospitalisations remained below those during previous waves, health chiefs have said.
Despite enjoying some of Europe’s lowest incidence rates during much of the pandemic, cases in Finland have been rising in recent weeks, with a record 1,024 new infections yesterday, public health agency THL said.
The Nordic nation of 5.5 million has so far recorded over 115,000 infections and 995 Covid-related deaths throughout the pandemic, THL said.
“In a situation where vaccine coverage is still incomplete and many people have only had one dose or none at all, the risk of serious infection is still there,” health ministry official Pasi Pohjola said. “That is why restrictions are continuing.”
AFP reports that of 20 August, indoor events will be limited to 25 people and outdoor gatherings to 50 in Helsinki and the surrounding areas, southern Finland’s regional administrative agency announced.
Finland’s vaccination drive currently lags behind many other EU states, with only 40% of the population fully vaccinated, in part because officials decided on a longer, three-month gap between doses to prioritise giving a first jab to as many as possible.
The THL said that although hospitalisations are down compared to previous waves, “the burden on healthcare services remains difficult.”
Updated
Authorities in China have suspended operations at a terminal in the world’s third-busiest cargo port after a worker was infected with Covid.
The closure of a key terminal at the Ningbo-Zhoushan port on the east coast, which handled almost 1.2bn tonnes in 2020, reflects China’s determination to squash its worst coronavirus outbreak in months no matter the economic costs, AFP reports.
The worker at the port’s Meishan terminal tested positive for coronavirus yesterday, Ningbo city officials said. The company “immediately stopped production work and closed the port area” as soon as the infection was detected, Jiang Yipeng, the CEO of Meidong Container Terminal, which operates the Meishan zone, said.
The worker had been fully vaccinated and it remains unclear how they became infected.
Meishan terminal is a newly built area of the expanded port and is its second mega-terminal, with capacity for 10m containers, state media reported.
Almost 2,000 frontline workers at Ningbo-Zhoushan port have been placed under “closed management” – effectively unable to leave the port – as a result of the infection, Chinese media reported. Chinese port workers are routinely tested for Covid.
China reported 81 new cases Thursday, of which 38 were local transmissions. Domestic transmissions surpassed 100 on Tuesday – the first time since January, AFP reports. Officials have said many of those infected had already been vaccinated.
Updated
Lesotho’s prime minister, Moeketsi Majoro, has said he is isolating after testing positive for Covid-19, as doctors warned the true tally of cases in the country was going unrecorded.
Majoro tweeted that he had taken a travel-related test that came back positive. He said: “May I advise anyone who has been in close contact with me recently to rush for PCR testing to ensure your safety.”
Majoro’s spokesperson, Buta Moseme, said the prime minister would remain in quarantine at home, although he was not showing any symptoms. He said Majoro’s oxygen saturation and other tests were satisfactory and that the public should remain calm.
In the statement, Majoro said:
The important message is that even when you are vaccinated, you should still follow WHO and Ministry of Health Covid-19 protocols at all times. Being vaccinated should not bring about reckless behaviour as an infected person can infect other people who are not vaccinated.
Updated
Meanwhile, staff at the coffee shop chain Pret a Manger – owned by a Luxembourg-headquartered conglomerate which controlled an estimated €25bn portfolio in 2019 – are considering striking after being told that a cut to pay for breaks and bonuses is permanent.
The workers, the vast majority of whom earn basic pay of the legal minimum £8.91 an hour, were told they would temporarily not be paid for breaks and a service bonus would be ditched in July last year after the pandemic hit, my colleague Sarah Butler reports.
But Pret has now told workers the cuts are permanent. The service bonus, linked to performance judged by a mystery shopper, was reintroduced in April this year at 50p an hour, down from £1 before the pandemic hit. Workers have been told that change is also permanent – and they now face an 11% pay cut.
Updated
One-off billionaire pandemic wealth gains tax could fund jabs for all, says Oxfam
A 99% emergency tax on the startling levels of profit made by billionaires during the pandemic could pay for everyone to get vaccinated and provide a £14,000 cash grant to all unemployed workers, according to a new analysis.
Oxfam, the Fight Inequality Alliance, the Institute for Policy Studies and the Patriotic Millionaires said a one-time levy could raise £4tn and still collectively leave the world’s 2,690 billionaires £40bn richer than before March 2020.
They said that governments across the world “are massively under-taxing the wealthiest individuals and big corporations, which is undermining the fight against Covid-19 and poverty and inequality”.
As tens of millions were forced into poverty due to strict Covid restrictions in many countries which often came without sufficient, or any, support measures, the billionaires increased their wealth by more than two-thirds – from £6tn to £9.7tn, according to the analysis.
Less than 1% of people in low-income countries have received a Covid vaccine – though it appears not all would want one – “while the profits made by Big Pharma has seen the CEOs of Moderna and BioNTech become billionaires,” they said.
Meanwhile, following a sixfold increase since 2020, 11 people are now likely dying of hunger and malnutrition each minute, outpacing Covid-related deaths, Oxfam has warned.
Gary Stevenson, inequality economist and former trader, and member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, said:
The super-rich have made enormous fortunes during this crisis, just like in 2008. We know what will happen if we do nothing about this, in the UK we are already seeing huge increases in inequality and huge rises in house prices while wages stay in a slump. It’s time for the very wealthiest to pay their fair share to help society recover from this global crisis. Philanthropy isn’t the answer, it can’t be optional. A wealth tax is the solution.
Max Lawson, Oxfam International’s global inequality policy lead, said:
Covid-19 is turning the gap between rich and poor into an unbridgeable chasm. The obscene levels of wealth gained from the pandemic by a handful of mega-rich individuals should immediately be taxed at 99% – enough to fully vaccinate everyone on earth and help millions of workers who lost their jobs due to Covid-19. Only with this kind of radical and progressive policy making will we be able to fight inequality and end poverty.
Hello and greetings to everyone reading, wherever you are in the world. Mattha Busby here to take you through the next few hours of global Covid developments. Thanks to my colleague Miranda Bryant for covering the blog up until now. Please feel free to drop me a line on Twitter or message me via email (mattha.busby.freelance@guardian.co.uk) with any tips or thoughts on our coverage.
Updated
Jacinda Ardern said earlier that New Zealand would continue to pursue its ambitious Covid-19 elimination strategy indefinitely, and that borders would never be the same.
She said borders would not reopen until after New Zealand’s vaccine rollout was completed at the end of the year. It comes after ministers dismissed suggestions New Zealand should follow in Britain’s footsteps to “live with” Covid-19.
But earlier this week, Prof Andrew Pollard the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group which developed AstraZeneca’s jab, told UK MPs that reaching herd immunity is “not a possibility” since the vaccines do not stop the spread of Covid. Therefore, he said, the idea of reaching the threshold for overall immunity in the population was “mythical”.
Updated
The Australian federal parliament’s next scheduled sittings are in limbo, after the nation’s capital was plunged into a snap seven-day lockdown in response to its first local Covid-19 case in more than a year.
The ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr,suggested federal parliament may need to be postponed, saying that while the functioning of democracy was important, “it really must be done in a safe way”.
Clearly there will be some decisions that individual MPs will need to make in relation to what they do in relation to this lockdown period. I think it’s too early to say at this point what the next parliamentary fortnight might look like and whether it may or may not need to be postponed.
Updated
Here's a summary of the latest developments
- Record numbers of people are waiting to start routine hospital treatment, according to figures from NHS England. At the end of June, 5.45m people were waiting to start treatment - the highest number since records began in August 2007.
- Ireland has started registering children aged 12 to 15 for Covid-19 vaccinations after strong uptake by older children in recent weeks. The country’s Health Service Executive (HSE) portal opened for the younger cohort on Thursday. The consent of one parent or guardian is needed to register.
- Less than a week after the Olympics came to a close, Tokyo has reported a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the capital and a record number of severely ill patients. The city recorded 4,989 infections on Thursday - with most of those affected in their 20s - and the number with severe symptoms rose to a record high of 218, reports the Japan Times.
- Russia has reported a record number of coronavirus deaths, with 808 people dying in the last 24 hours. Daily cases have declined gradually since their July peak. The country reported 21,932 new Covid cases, 2,294 of which were in Moscow.
- UK chancellor Rishi Sunak said the latest figures show that the economy is “recovering very strongly” but admitted that the shock from the pandemic was “significant”. It comes after it was this morning announced that the UK economy grew by 4.8% in the second quarter of 2021 and rose by 1% in June as lockdown restrictions were eased.
- A UK government scientific adviser says that Delta and other variants “stress test our vaccines to the max” and that he is “strongly in favour” of mixing jabs. Prof Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial who is on the immunology taskforce for the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) advising the government, told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “Delta variant and other variants really stress test our vaccines to the max.”
- Finland has set a new record for coronavirus infections over a two-week period. The country recorded 174 infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days, reports the Helsinki Times, breaking the previous record set on 25 March.
- France is to share 670,000 coronavirus vaccine doses with Vietnam, president Emmanuel Macron has announced.
- Mexico saw a record rise in coronavirus cases on Wednesday. Cases increased by 22,711 to 3,020,596 and there were 727 new deaths, according to health ministry data cited by Bloomberg.
That’s it from me for now, handing over to my colleague Mattha Busby. Thanks for reading!
Record numbers in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment
Record numbers of people are waiting to start routine hospital treatment, according to figures from NHS England (see also 09:55).
At the end of June, 5.45 million people were waiting to start treatment – the highest number since records began in August 2007.
In some signs of progress, the number of people waiting for over 52 weeks to start treatment fell to 304,803 in June from 336,733 the month before. But it was still approximately six times the equivalent figure from the previous year, which was 50,536.
Meanwhile, the figures showed that the number of urgent cancer referrals made by GPs in June rose by 50% on last year to 230,110. The equivalent figure for before the pandemic in June 2019 was 194,047.
A&E attendance at hospitals in England were 36% higher than last year, at 2.16m, but this reflected below usual numbers for July 2020 because of the pandemic. The equivalent figure for July 2019 was 2.27m.
Updated
South Korea is considering making it compulsory for its largest hospitals to reserve at least 1.5% of their intensive care beds for severe Covid-19 patients as the country tries to contain the latest surge, reports Reuters:
South Korea is considering mandating its largest hospitals provide at least 1.5% of their intensive care beds for severe COVID-19 patients as such cases rise along with record new infections, two sources familiar with the plan told Reuters.
While the country has a relatively low mortality rate - 0.98% as of Wednesday - the more contagious Delta variant and a rise in domestic travel over summer have contributed to a spike in severe coronavirus patients, many of them young and unvaccinated.
Severe Covid-19 cases jumped from 145 as of July 10 to 372 on Wednesday, official data showed. Of the severely ill patients, 62.1% were between aged 20 to 59.
Health authorities convened a meeting with directors of the top 31 hospitals on Tuesday where they revealed plans to issue an administrative order to mandate hospitals to designate 1.5% of their ICU beds for severe and critical Covid-19 patients, two sources who were present at the video conference told Reuters. They declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Since December, hospitals have already had to set aside at least 1% of their ICU beds, but hospital officials say that it goes far beyond simply freeing up a few more beds as coronavirus patients often require whole floors or wards be sealed off, and specially trained medical teams tasked with their treatment.
Many directors objected to the government plan on the grounds that the ICU capacities were physically impossible to free up at such short notice, one source said.
Yu Kyung-ho, director of Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital in Anyang, who also attended the meeting said his hospital has 11 extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) devices, and eight were already occupied by severe coronavirus patients.
“Just focusing on securing more ICU beds wouldn’t solve the problem,” Yu said. “If our hospital assigns more ICU beds for Covid-19 patients, we will need to send non-Covid patients home.”
A health ministry official acknowledged a meeting with hospital officials was held, but did not confirm the plan.
South Korea has 810 ICU beds for severe Covid-19 patients nationwide and 298 of them were available as of Wednesday evening, the official said. Of the vacant spots, 146 were in the capital Seoul and neighbouring areas.
South Korea reported 1,987 new coronavirus cases for Wednesday. The total number of infections in the country stands at 218,192, with 2,138 deaths.
Sixteen percent of South Korea’s 52 million population have been fully vaccinated, while 42.5% have received at least one dose of a vaccine. The government aims to inoculate 70% with at least one shot by September.
Ireland starts registering 12 to 15-year-olds for coronavirus vaccinations
Ireland has started registering children aged 12 to 15 for Covid-19 vaccinations after strong uptake by older children in recent weeks.
The country’s Health Service Executive (HSE) portal opened for the younger cohort on Thursday. The consent of one parent or guardian is needed to register.
Immunisation will be with a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine and take place at HSE vaccination centres, pharmacies and GP offices.
Children aged 12-15 will be offered a #COVIDVaccine soon, to protect them from COVID-19. Watch this update from Dr. Lucy Jessop, Director of Public Health at @HSEImm. #ForUsAll pic.twitter.com/Rek92AWSaj
— HSE Ireland (@HSELive) August 11, 2021
Over 78% of adults, representing almost 60% of the population, are fully vaccinated against coronavirus. Almost three-quarters of people aged 18 to 29 have received a first dose.
Christine Loscher, a professor of immunology at Dublin City University, told RTE real-world data should reassure parents about vaccinating children. The US had reported a very rare side-effect of myocarditis, or heart inflammation, she said. “The most important thing is that the real-world data tells us it is a possibility and tells us how to manage it and spot the signs.”
The UK this week decided to extend the vaccine to 16 and 17-year-olds.
Updated
Less than a week after Olympics Tokyo reports sharp rise in Covid cases
Less than a week after the Olympics came to a close, Tokyo has reported a sharp rise in coronavirus cases in the capital and a record number of severely ill patients.
The city recorded 4,989 infections on Thursday – with most of those affected in their 20s – and the number with severe symptoms rose to a record high of 218, reports the Japan Times.
It comes after Japan reported 15,812 new cases on Wednesday – a new daily record – and there were 20 additional deaths.
Osaka, Shizuoka, Mie, Shiga, Kyoto, Nara, Ehime, Kumamoto and Kagoshima prefectures reported record numbers of new cases.
Following the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games on Sunday, Tokyo is now preparing for the start of the Paralympics on 24 August.
Updated
Russia reports record 808 Covid deaths in 24 hours
Russia has reported a record number of coronavirus deaths, with 808 people dying in the last 24 hours.
Daily cases have declined gradually since their July peak. The country reported 21,932 new Covid cases, 2,294 of which were in Moscow.
Updated
A total of 275,271 people were admitted for routine treatment in hospitals in England in June – nearly three times the number for the same period last year, but still lower than the figure for a non-pandemic year.
In June 2020 the figure was 94,354 and in June 2019, it was 289,203.
Updated
Opposition parties in Scotland have raised concerns about Scots lagging behind other parts of the UK on vaccine passports, with Scots struggling to have their paper confirmation of vaccination recognised abroad.
Whilst travellers from England and Wales can present a digitally recognised QR code, the Scottish government digital scheme is not expected to launch until next month.
Scottish Conservative MP Andrew Bowie told the Scotsman that the delay was making Scots “second-class citizens in terms of international travel”, whilst former Labour MSP Cara Hilton told the Times Scotland that restaurants in France were turning away Scottish tourists because they could not recognise their certifications.
The Scottish government says it is aiming to release a new app to make proof of vaccination simpler by next month.
Updated
A West End director has said his production is rotating its cast to avoid being impacted by coronavirus exposure.
Michael Longhurst, director of Constellations, currently showing at the Vaudeville theatre in London, told Sky News they made the decision to avoid falling victim to the “pingdemic”.
It comes after several productions had to cancel performances after production members were “pinged” by the NHS app.
Updated
Rishi Sunak says latest figures show UK is recovering 'very strongly' but admits pandemic shock 'significant'
UK chancellor Rishi Sunak said the latest figures show that the economy is “recovering very strongly” but admitted that the shock from the pandemic was “significant”.
It comes after it was this morning announced that the UK economy grew by 4.8% in the second quarter of 2021 and rose by 1% in June as lockdown restrictions were eased (see 7:31).
In an interview with Sky News, Sunak said the travel industry has had a “difficult time” but that the recent reopening to fully vaccinated air passengers was an “enormous boost to the sector”.
He pledged there would not be a return to austerity and said the government has “looked after the most vulnerable” in society during the pandemic and that it is “not done” supporting people.
In his own office, he said people would be returning “slowly and carefully” to the treasury and that the government is leaving decisions about transitioning from home to office working “up to employees and employers”.
"It's right that we do these things in a measured way."
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 12, 2021
Chancellor Rishi Sunak says the Govt was right to be cautious when it came to lifting travel restrictions.
Meanwhile latest figures show that the economy grew by 4.8% in Q2 of 2021. Read more: https://t.co/H8J2sNlFiC pic.twitter.com/j93LcUZD4j
Updated
A Vietnamese businessman has been arrested for making and selling hundreds of fraudulent negative Covid-19 test certificates.
Tran Tuan Duong, who runs a printing business in Bac Ninh province, was arrested on Wednesday while selling certificates, reports Reuters.
Duong, 34, admitted that he had sold approximately 150 fake certificates, according to police, who said they are investigating.
It comes as a surge of infections has resulted in movement restrictions that require people to have negative certificates to travel.
Vietnam has recorded over 241,000 cases and at least 4,487 deaths - many of which were in recent months.
UK government adviser says variants 'stress test our vaccines to the max' and is 'strongly in favour' of mixing jabs
A UK government scientific adviser says that Delta and other variants “stress test our vaccines to the max” and that he is “strongly in favour” of mixing jabs.
Prof Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London who is on the immunology taskforce for the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) advising the government, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Delta variant and other variants really stress test our vaccines to the max.”
He added that Sinovac, the vaccine developed in China, is “kind of near the bottom of the pile” in terms of antibody levels and efficacy.
In general, he said he is “strongly in favour” of mixing jabs.
He added that “a bit of mix and match for the boosters is always going to be a good idea” for maximising the chances of getting a good immune response.
He said the data for mixing mRNA vaccines with AstraZeneca “looks absolutely super”.
But on the subject of “vaccine fade” after receiving two doses, he said it was leading to “really difficult discussions at the moment” and that the UK and US appear to be reaching “slightly different answers”.
After two doses, most people “might hopefully be safe against the variants we currently know about for a good little while to come.” But, he warned: “That leaves all of us who aren’t typical, who are old, or obese or have cancer or who are immunosuppressed who will be vulnerable. And that’s when you have these difficult conversations about when to boost.”
He said a debate is needed on how to share vaccines across the world equitably.
He said his own research into long Covid is under way and that his team are trying to find an “autoimmune biosignature of long Covid” that would enable people to get diagnosed by the NHS and treated.
Updated
Finland reports record number of new Covid infections over two weeks
Finland has set a new record for coronavirus infections over a two-week period.
The country recorded 174 infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days, reports the Helsinki Times, breaking the previous record set on 25 March.
On Wednesday there were 844 new infections reported and 11 additional deaths, bringing the overall death toll to 995.
The publication reports that the number of inpatients has declined and that the number of intensive care patients are levelling off – despite rising infections – which it attributes to infections being detected in young people and those who have been vaccinated.
Updated
France to send 670,000 vaccine doses to Vietnam
France is to share 670,000 coronavirus vaccine doses with Vietnam, President Emmanuel Macron has announced on Twitter:
Pour gagner ce combat face à l’épidémie, l’accès au vaccin doit être mondial et équitable. C’est pourquoi la France vient de partager 670 000 doses destinées au Vietnam, dans le cadre du programme de solidarité Covax.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 12, 2021
Updated
UK schools minister says it's been an "exceptional year" amid pandemic as pupils get their GCSE results
The UK schools minister, Nick Gibb, said it had been an “exceptional year” for young people as they get their GCSE results without having sat exams due to the pandemic.
He said teacher-assessed grades were the “best alternative” to exams when children have had such different experiences of coronavirus.
He told Sky News:
This is an exceptional year designed to make sure that despite the pandemic and despite the fact that we had to cancel exams, because it wouldn’t have been fair for children, young people to sit exams when they’ve had such different experiences of Covid, the different levels of self-isolation and so on.
So the teacher-assessed system is the best alternative to making sure they can go on to the next phase of their education or careers.
"This has been an exceptional year"
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 12, 2021
Schools Minister Nick Gibb says it wouldn't have been fair to sit exams this year but expects students to be able to in 2022, however it will be 'adjusted to reflect the disruption' pupils have had to their education.https://t.co/tTcK8v3Ie8 pic.twitter.com/gR90u5sEOL
Updated
UK economy grew 4.8% in second quarter and rose by 1% in June as lockdown restrictions eased
The UK economy grew by 4.8% in the second quarter of 2021, the Office for National Statistics has said, and rose by 1% in June as lockdown restrictions were eased.
The ONS deputy national statistician for economic statistics, Jonathan Athow, said: “GDP is still around two percentage points below its pre-pandemic peak.”
GDP grew by 1.0% in June 2021 and is now 2.2% below its pre-pandemic peak:
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) August 12, 2021
-services grew 1.5% (2.1% below February 2020)
-manufacturing grew 0.2% (2.3% below February 2020)
-construction fell 1.3% (0.3% below February 2020)
➡️ https://t.co/0mlHvgiskA pic.twitter.com/V2sb9zen8t
Commenting on today’s GDP figures, @jathers_ONS said: (1/4) pic.twitter.com/3rO46vfhUD
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) August 12, 2021
Updated
Mexico sees record rise in Covid cases
Mexico saw a record rise in coronavirus cases on Wednesday.
Cases increased by 22,711 to 3,020,596 and there were 727 new deaths, according to health ministry data cited by Bloomberg.
The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, urged people to get vaccinated.
He said: “There are infections, but there are fewer hospitalizations, and more importantly, fewer deaths, because the vaccine is helping a lot.”
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
Updated
Fewer than one in five people working in cities across the UK had returned to the office by the end of July, figures have revealed.
A report from the Centre for Cities thinktank said worker footfall in 30 big cities stood at an average of just 18% of pre-pandemic levels in the immediate aftermath of most Covid laws being scrapped in England.
The biggest migration of workers back to the office has occurred in Brighton, with 49% of people having returned to their desks, a rise of 6% on the previous week. This was followed by Gloucester (39%), Southend (38%) and York (37%).
Cities where only a fraction of workers have gone back to the office include Glasgow, with an 8% figure – the city has had coronavirus restrictions in force for longer, given Scotland’s slower easing than England – followed by London and Oxford (15%) and Sheffield and Milton Keynes (16%).
Daytime worker footfall fell by 1% in the final week of July compared with the previous seven days, and on average was running at barely half the pre-Covid levels:
New Zealand details plans to reopen border
New Zealand will continue to pursue its ambitious Covid-19 elimination strategy indefinitely, Jacinda Ardern has said, adding that borders would never be the same as she laid out plans for a cautious, phased, reopening of the country.
The prime minister set out the country’s much-awaited reopening strategy on Thursday, and warned that New Zealand would always need some kind of protection at its border. “Just like after 9/11, the border will never be the same after Covid … things can change, but that doesn’t mean we can’t adapt to them in a way that eventually feels normal again.”
However, she also indicated that, all going well, vaccinated travellers from low-risk countries will be allowed to skip quarantine and enter the country early next year.
There are also plans to speed up the vaccine rollout to protect against the threat of the Delta variant.
New Zealand’s elimination strategy, which has included strict border measures, short and intensive lockdowns and quick contract-tracing methods, has proved successful, with no community cases of the virus in 165 days and a total of 26 deaths since the pandemic began:
Updated
England ends ‘pingdemic’ for vaccinated
Fully vaccinated people in England will no longer be legally required to self-isolate upon contact with a positive Covid case from Monday, and will instead be advised to take a PCR test – in a marked shift from rules that have led to more than 14m instructions to stay at home.
Ministers have confirmed that the legal requirement to isolate will be replaced with non-binding advice to take a test for the fully jabbed, as well as those 18 and under. And those who do come into contact with the infected will not be told to isolate while waiting for their results. For people who do test positive, isolation will continue:
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Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Fully vaccinated people in England will no longer be legally required to self-isolate upon contact with a positive Covid case from Monday, and will instead be advised to take a PCR test – in a marked shift from rules that have led to more than 14m instructions to stay at home.
Meanwhile New Zealand plans to allow quarantine-free entry to vaccinated travellers from low-risk countries from early next year as part of a phased reopening of its borders that were shut last year due to the pandemic, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Thursday.
Here are the other key recent developments:
- The UK is sending low- and middle-income countries who are struggling to access vaccines “to the back of the queue” by ordering millions of “overpriced” booster jabs from Pfizer, according to vaccine equity campaigners from Global Justice Now.
- A UK government scientific adviser has said Covid is unlikely to be eradicated entirely because there is no vaccine that is 95% protective against infection. Prof Andrew Hayward also said that Covid would likely continue to mutate, meaning true herd immunity was even further unlikely.
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Iran’s supreme leader has said the pandemic is the country’s “No 1 problem” and must urgently be curbed, as he called for greater efforts to import and produce vaccines.
Europe’s drugs regulator said it is looking into three new conditions to assess whether they may be possible side-effects related to Covid-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, following a small number of cases. - A new US practice of transferring asylum-seekers and migrants expelled under public health orders by plane to southern Mexico contravenes international law, the UN refugee agency said.
- Thai police fired water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters in Bangkok for a second consecutive day as demonstrators rallied against the government and its handling of the coronavirus crisis.
- China’s drug regulator approved the country’s first mixed-vaccine trial, a company involved in the study has said, amid concern about the efficacy of domestically produced jabs.
- Chinese state media articles quoted a Swiss biologist accusing the US of politicising Covid origin investigations were quietly deleted, after the Swiss government said no such person exists.
- A video of the Republican senator Rand Paul disputing the effectiveness of wearing masks was removed from YouTube. Its policy is to ban videos that claim masks do not play a role in preventing the contraction or transmission of Covid is based on the guidance of the World Health Organization – which u-turned last year after initially refraining from recommending people wear face masks in public.
- Authorities in northern Germany have appealed to thousands of people to get another shot of Covid vaccine after a police investigation found a Red Cross nurse may have injected them with a saline solution.
- The Australian Olympic Committee condemned the South Australian government over its “cruel and uncaring” Olympic decision, which forces athletes who have already quarantined in Sydney to complete an additional 14-day home quarantine on return to the state.
