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Summary
That’s it from me, Robyn Vinter, in the UK. Here’s a summary of the events of the last 24 hours.
- Covid infection control measures in UK hospitals should be relaxed to help the NHS tackle a record backlog of patients waiting for treatment, the UK’s public health agency has advised.
- The UK has recorded a further 40 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, according to the latest government data. It marks a decrease in the daily deaths figure, after 58 deaths were reported on Sunday. However, 37,960 new cases were registered in the past 24 hours – up from 32,417 on Sunday.
- In the US, president Joe Biden has had a coronavirus booster jab, the White House confirmed. It comes days after his administration gave the go-ahead for a third shot of Pfizer’s vaccine in certain populations.
- The British prime minister Boris Johnson has finally agreed to meet the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group at Downing Street, well over a year after first promising to do so.
- In Japan, the Covid state of emergency will be lifted in all regions at the end of September. Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Monday that he will discuss whether to lift the state of emergency with a government expert panel on Tuesday.
- The UK has fully vaccinated more than two-thirds of its population against Covid – one of a small number of countries to reach the milestone.
- In the US, hospital and nursing home workers in New York must be vaccinated against Covid by the end of today to be allowed to continue working in their jobs.
- Australian authorities have announced plans to reopen locked-down Sydney using a two-tiered system that will give people who are vaccinated against Covid more more freedoms than their unvaccinated neighbours for several weeks.
- South Korea has announced it will begin vaccinating children aged 12 to 17 and offering Covid vaccine booster shots to those 75 years and above.
- In Northern Ireland, shoppers have been urged not to “rush at once” to apply for a high street voucher scheme. All adults are eligible for a £100 pre-paid card to spend on the high street as the government looked to boost local businesses devastated by the pandemic.
Updated
Brazil recorded 14,423 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the past 24 hours, along with 210 deaths from Covid-19, the Health Ministry said on Monday.
Brazil has registered more than 21 million cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 594,653, according to ministry data.
Updated
An interesting piece here from the Guardian’s media editor Jim Waterson, looking at whether the UK public has a right to know if any participants on this year’s Strictly Come Dancing have not been vaccinated, potentially putting others at risk.
Covid infection control measures in UK hospitals should be relaxed to help the NHS tackle a record backlog of patients waiting for treatment, the UK’s public health agency has advised.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has recommended three “pragmatic” changes that hospitals can make on social distancing, testing and cleaning practices to ease pressure on elective care services.
A reduction of physical distancing from two metres to one metre in non-emergency departments is among the recommended changes to current Covid Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) measures.
This would put hospitals in line with World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance, which currently advises one-metre physical distancing in healthcare facilities.
The agency also recommends removing the need for patients in low risk groups to self-isolate for three days and have a negative PCR test before selected procedures.
Enhanced cleaning should also be axed in low risk areas and providers can revert to standard practices, the agency said.
It noted that the WHO and other international authorities have stated there is limited evidence on transmission of Covid via surfaces, and that hand hygiene is likely to be more effective.
The agency said its advice comes as more of the population is vaccinated and protected against Covid, and hopes it will ease the pressure created by the pandemic on NHS capacity over the next few months.
A record 5.6 million patients are waiting for treatment due to delays caused by Covid, according to NHS England figures released earlier this month.
Dr Jenny Harries, UKHSA chief executive, said: “We have reviewed the existing Covid-19 IPC evidence based guidance and made a series of initial pragmatic recommendations on how local providers can start to safely remove some of the interventions that have been in place in elective care specifically for Covid-19.
“This is a first step to help the NHS treat more patients more quickly, while ensuring their safety and balancing their different needs for care.”
However, the UKHSA stressed that staff working in areas where Covid-19 control measures have been relaxed should be fully vaccinated, asymptomatic and not in contact with a positive case.
Staff will also be required to continue to comply with current guidance on asymptomatic testing.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has tested negative for Covid-19 on Monday morning, State Department said, after department spokesperson Ned Price tested positive for the disease and is quarantining.
“After experiencing symptoms for the first time this morning, I tested positive for COVID-19 shortly thereafter, & will now quarantine for the next 10 days,” Price, who is vaccinated, said on Twitter.
Price joined more than half a dozen meetings with Blinken last week in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
In a call with reporters, Department deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter said Blinken had tested negative as recently as Monday morning and none of the other members of the traveling party were currently exhibiting symptoms.
Price also spent a good part of last week within the close circle of Blinken, including Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman and Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, who have held their own separate meetings with a number of foreign delegations.
Hello, it’s Robyn Vinter here, taking over the live blog for the next few hours.
US President Joe Biden has received his booster jab for Covid-19 at the White House. This is his third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine after announcing last week that Americans over the age of 65 and frontline workers would be eligible for booster shots.
Summary
Here is a quick round-up of the coronavirus stories dominating the headlines today in the UK and around the world:
- The UK has recorded a further 40 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, according to the latest government data. It marks a decrease in the daily deaths figure, after 58 deaths were reported on Sunday. However, 37,960 new cases were registered in the past 24 hours – up from 32,417 on Sunday.
- In the United States, president Joe Biden will receive a coronavirus booster jab on Monday, the White House announced. It comes days after his administration gave the go-ahead for a third shot of Pfizer’s vaccine in certain populations.
- The British prime minister Boris Johnson has finally agreed to meet the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group at Downing Street, well over a year after first promising to do so.
- In Japan, the Covid state of emergency will be lifted in all regions at the end of September. Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Monday that he will discuss whether to lift the state of emergency with a government expert panel on Tuesday.
- The UK has fully vaccinated more than two-thirds of its population against Covid – one of a small number of countries to reach the milestone.
- In the US, hospital and nursing home workers in New York must be vaccinated against Covid by the end of today to be allowed to continue working in their jobs.
- Australian authorities have announced plans to reopen locked-down Sydney using a two-tiered system that will give people who are vaccinated against Covid more more freedoms than their unvaccinated neighbours for several weeks.
- South Korea has announced it will begin vaccinating children aged 12 to 17 and offering Covid vaccine booster shots to those 75 years and above.
- In Northern Ireland, shoppers have been urged not to “rush at once” to apply for a high street voucher scheme. All adults are eligible for a £100 pre-paid card to spend on the high street as the government looked to boost local businesses devastated by the pandemic.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for today. I’ll be back on the Covid live blog tomorrow but my colleague Robyn Vinter will continue to bring you the latest coronavirus news throughout the evening. Goodbye.
Yemen’s top diplomat has said the country needs millions more Covid vaccines to ensure people living in poverty are not left behind.
In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, said the roughly one million doses it received is not enough to vaccinate even its most vulnerable citizens. He said:
These amounts are still not enough to cover the targeted groups.
We hope that the donating countries will contribute to increasing the number of vaccines so that no one is left behind.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported:
Yemen has a long way to go toward vaccinating the majority of its some 30 million people, most of whom are facing multiple humanitarian crises, including poverty, hunger and poor access to adequately run hospitals.
Yemen’s government has received just roughly 500,000 doses so far this year through the COVAX initiative, and the rest through direct donations from other countries.
Yemen has been stricken by civil war since 2014, when the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels took control of the capital, Sana’a, and much of the northern part of the country.
A pharmacy owner in Puerto Rico has pleaded guilty to illegally vaccinating two dozen children against Covid with shots that had not been approved as safe for that age group.
The US Attorney’s Office said Liz Ann Banchs fully inoculated children between the ages of seven and 11 with the Pfizer vaccine from late May until late June, the Associated Press reported.
The vaccine is currently approved for those 12 years and older, though Pfizer announced last week that a version of its vaccine, with much-reduced doses, is safe and works for children ages 5 to 11 and that it will soon seek US authorisation for that age group.
Authorities said the illegal vaccination occurred at Farmacia Gabriela in the southern mountain town of Juana Diaz. They said Banchs faces up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.
In Venezuela, concerns have been raised over the use of Cuba’s Abdala Covid vaccine due to a lack of scientific research into its safety and efficacy.
It comes as Cuba confirmed on Saturday that it had exported the three-dose vaccine for the first time, with an initial shipment being sent to Vietnam as part of a contract to supply five million doses to the Southeast Asian country.
But Venezuela’s National Academy of Medicine has moved to warn against its use due to its lack of World Health Organization (WHO) approval, Reuters reported today.
The Venezuelan government has so far been relying on the Russian Sputnik V and the Chinese Sinopharm vaccines and, in recent months, received its first shipment of doses via the global COVAX program.
The academy said in a statement:
The characteristics of the Sputnik V vaccine have been published in scientific journals and its quality has been verified in independent clinical trials ... the Sinopharm vaccine has been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Abdala has not been approved by the WHO or any international regulatory agency.
Venezuela received its first batch of 30,000 Abdala doses in June as part of clinical trials, and Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Sunday said another batch had been sent, without confirming how many vaccines were shipped.
The academy “expresses its deep concern that a product for which there is no scientific information on safety and efficacy ... is being administered to Venezuelans,” the academy added.
A federal judge ruled that a Wisconsin, United States, sheriff violated free speech protections guaranteed by the first amendment when he asked a teen to remove an Instagram post about Covid-19 that “upset” local parents in March last year.
The teen, Amyiah Cohoon, and her parents sued the sheriff’s department after a deputy threatened to arrest family members if Amyiah did not delete an Instagram post which described her experiences when possibly infected by Covid-19. She was 16 at the time.
“Labeling censorship societally beneficial does not render it lawful,” wrote Brett Ludwig, a district court judge in Milwaukee. “If it did, nearly all censorship would evade first amendment scrutiny.”
According to Ludwig’s ruling, the post, made in mid-March 2020, was the subject of “numerous” calls to health and school officials in Marquette county. At the time, the county had not yet had a case of Covid-19.
In his ruling, issued on Friday, Ludwig wrote:
Defendants may have preferred to keep Marquette county residents ignorant to the possibility of Covid-19 in their community for a while longer, so they could avoid having to field calls from concerned citizens, but that preference did not give them authority to hunt down and eradicate inconvenient Instagram posts.
US president Joe Biden to get Covid booster jab
In the United States, president Joe Biden will receive a coronavirus booster jab on Monday, the White House announced.
It comes days after his administration gave the go-ahead for a third shot of Pfizer’s vaccine in certain populations.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week backed an additional dose of the Pfizer Inc/BioNTech vaccine for Americans aged 65 and older, adults with underlying medical conditions and adults in high-risk working and institutional settings.
Biden, 78, has said he and his wife Jill Biden would get their booster dose as soon as eligible.
Pfizer has started testing a potential coronavirus treatment as a preventive medicine.
The drug will be aimed at preventing people becoming infected with the virus if a close contact have tested positive for it already.
The Reuters news agency reported:
The drugmaker said Monday that it will study the pill it is developing in combination with a low dose of the HIV drug ritonavir in people who are at least 18 years old and live in the same household with someone who is infected.
Pfizer plans to enrol 2,660 people in the late-stage study. Those participating will get either the treatment combination or a fake drug orally twice a day for five to 10 days.
Researchers expect that the use of ritonavir will help slow the breakdown of the potential treatment so it remains active longer to help fight the virus.
“If successful, we believe this therapy could help stop the virus early - before it has had a chance to replicate extensively,” Pfizer chief scientific officer Dr Mikael Dolsten said in a statement.
Jordan’s crown Prince Hussein has tested positive for coronavirus, the country’s palace announced today.
His parents King Abdullah and Queen Rania, who tested negative, have chosen to protectively self-isolate for five days, according to the Reuters news agency.
The palace said in a statement:
His Highness Prince Hussein, who had received the vaccine against the coronavirus, showed mild symptoms and is in very good health.
A vaccine-sceptic Roman Catholic cardinal who was placed on a ventilator after contracting Covid has admitted he is still struggling to recover from the virus.
Cardinal Raymond Burke posted a letter on his website on Saturday saying he had left hospital and moved into a house near his family, reports the Associated Press, which added:
Burke said he’s going through in-home rehabilitation, still suffers from fatigue and has difficulty breathing. He didn’t detail what his rehabilitation regimen includes but said he is making steady but slow progress. He said a secretary from Rome has moved in with him to help him with his rehabilitation and catch up on his work.
Burke wrote on his website:
I cannot predict when I will be able to return to my normal activities. Seemingly, it will be several more weeks.
Burke, one of the church’s most outspoken conservatives, tweeted on August 10 that he had contracted Covid.
Meanwhile, Italy has reported 45 more coronavirus-related deaths on Monday compared to 44 the day before, its health ministry said.
It comes as the country’s daily tally of new infections fell to 1,772 from 3,099, Reuters reported.
Italy has registered 130,742 deaths linked to Covid since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the ninth-highest in the world.
UK records 40 more Covid deaths and 37,960 new cases
The UK has recorded a further 40 coronavirus deaths in the past 24 hours, according to the latest government data.
It marks a decrease in the daily deaths figure, after 58 deaths were reported on Sunday. However, 37,960 new cases were registered in the past 24 hours – up from 32,417 on Sunday.
The number of Covid vaccines being delivered also fell, with 14,120 first doses and 24,851 second doses being given to people up to and including Sunday.
It brings the total number of jabs given to 48,736,534 first doses and 44,764,324 second doses and marks more than 82% of over-16s in the UK as being fully vaccinated.
Updated
Northern Ireland has registered a further four deaths of patients who had tested positive for Covid.
The Department of Health said there had also been 903 new confirmed infection cases in the past 24 hours.
As of Monday morning there were 345 Covid patients in hospital in the country, with 28 in intensive care.
Updated
Today marks deadline for New York hospital workers to be vaccinated
In the US, hospital and nursing home workers in New York must be vaccinated against Covid by the end of today to be allowed to continue working in their jobs.
The Associated Press (AP) reports that thousands of employees are still “holding out” on getting the jab, sparking fears over severe staff shortages if workers are suspended or dismissed as a result.
Hospital administrators are understood to have prepared contingency plans, including cutting back on non-critical services and limiting nursing home admissions. The AP reports:
Governor Kathy Hochul said this weekend she was prepared to call in medically trained National Guard members and retirees, or vaccinated workers from outside the state, to fill any gaps. The governor has held firm on the mandate in the face of pleas to delay it and multiple lawsuits challenging its constitutionality.
All health care workers in New York state at hospitals and nursing homes are required to be vaccinated with at least one dose of the Covid vaccine by Monday. Employees who refuse the shots face suspensions and termination.
The rules apply not just to people like doctors and nurses, but also to others who work in health care institutions, like food service workers, administrators and cleaners.
Healthcare workers are allowed to apply for a religious exemption and a federal judge will consider a legal challenge arguing that such exemptions are constitutionally required on 12 October.
Updated
For some UK workers, finally meeting their colleagues face-to-face has come with a few nasty surprises.
Alexandra was delighted when she landed a new job in the midst of the pandemic. The 55-year-old felt she had bonded with her new colleagues online and looked forward to meeting them face-to-face once the lockdown was over.
But when she finally went into the office, she had a nasty realisation. “I strongly suspect that they would not have hired me, had they met me in person during the interview process,” she said.
Alexandra is just one of many people employed during Covid via a virtual recruitment process who found it awkward meeting their colleagues in person for the first time.
For the full story, see below.
Updated
In case you missed it earlier, tributes have poured in for a doctor in Papua New Guinea’s Western Province who died last week, in the country’s first death of a healthcare worker from Covid confirmed by the government.
Dr Naomi Kori Pomat, 60, the director for curative health services at the Western Provincial Health Authority (WPHA), was medevaced to Port Moresby after contracting the virus and died on 19 September.
Her son, Dr David Pomat, told the Guardian:
Dr Naomi Pomat was my mother and we loved her very dearly … a wonderful, loving, humble and selfless woman who literally gave her life to serving her people despite all odds.
Tributes have poured in over social media, with friends and family who knew her remembering her life and her dedication to the people of Western Province.
Updated
Staying with Scotland for now, the government has just announced that it has recorded one coronavirus death and 2,069 cases in the past 24 hours.
It means the death toll of people who tested positive for the virus within 28 days of their death stands at 8,535.
The daily test positivity rate is 9.5%, up from 8.9% the previous day, PA Media reports.
A total of 1,023 people were in hospital with recently confirmed Covid, up 19, with 76 patients in intensive care, down two.
So far, 4,181,617 people have received the first dose of a Covid vaccination and 3,829,881 have received their second dose.
Updated
In Scotland, the Scottish Labour party has reported the test and protect system’s data on coronavirus contact tracing times to the UK’s statistics watchdog.
It comes after a report found that official figures did not include “failed” contact tracing attempts, where the test and protect team were not able to reach positive cases by phone.
There had been more than 50,000 such failed cases in a year, making up around 10% of all test and protect cases, the Scottish Sun reported.
The newspaper says these failed cases were not included in the weekly figures published by Public Health Scotland, which are used to determine if the system is meeting the international standard of the World Health Organisation.
The target is for 80% of cases to have their close contacts traced and quarantined within 72 hours of the case being confirmed.
Scottish Labour’s health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said:
In the chaos of this unprecedented public health crisis, we need to be able to trust the official statistics we’re seeing.
These astonishing revelations sum up everything that is wrong with the SNP’s handling of the pandemic – they show a government more concerned with hiding their failures rather than fixing them.
This is not the first time they have been caught out pushing the boundaries of accuracy when it comes to statistics.
The WHO’s mantra may be test, test, test, but the SNP’s is spin, spin spin.
The Scottish government said it was confident in its interpretation of the data and how it relates to the WHO standard.
Updated
In Northern Ireland, shoppers have been urged not to “rush at once” to apply for a high street voucher scheme.
All adults are eligible for a £100 pre-paid card to spend on the high street as the government looked to boost local businesses devastated by the pandemic.
However, as the £145m high street stimulus scheme opened today, people went on social media to complain that were experiencing difficulties in applying for the card on the NI Direct site.
Some said the site had crashed, while others had not immediately received a verification email after entering their details, PA Media reported.
A spokesman for the Department for the Economy said:
The website is currently experiencing some challenges associated with high demand.
We are working quickly to fix this, but we always knew demand for the Spend Local card would be extremely high which is why we are giving people four weeks to apply.
Please be patient, there is plenty of time for everyone to apply, receive and use their card.
Updated
UK fully vaccinates more than two-thirds of entire population
The UK has fully vaccinated more than two-thirds of its population against Covid – one of a small number of countries to reach the milestone.
Government figures show that 44.7m second jabs have been delivered, which works out as just over 66.6% of the UK’s population. Other countries to have already passed this figure include Canada (with at least 70% of people fully vaccinated), Chile (73%) and Singapore (76%).
However, other European nations also beat the UK to the milestone of two-thirds fully jabbed, including Italy (67%), Belgium (71%), Ireland (73%) and Spain (77%).
Portugal continues to lead the world, however, with at least 84% of its total population having received two doses of the vaccine, PA Media reported.
Updated
More countries are exploring the possibility of switching to different coronavirus jabs for second doses and booster shots after supply delays and safety concerns hindered their vaccination campaigns.
The World Health Organization said on 12 July it was a “dangerous trend” since there was little data about the health impact, Reuters reports.
However, a British study is looking into the immune responses of children to mixed schedules of different vaccines.
Officials said that while the recipients will be given a first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, advice about second doses will be provided at a later date, while more data is gathered.
Britain is preparing for a ‘mix and match’ vaccine booster programme, the Financial Times reported on 10 September.
Denmark plans to combine AstraZeneca’s vaccine with a second shot from either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, while Germany will offer booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines from September to vulnerable individuals, regardless of which vaccine they had previously received.
Russia and Turkey are also weighing up mix-and-match shots, while the US has authorised a third dose from either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna for people with compromised immune systems who are likely to have weaker protection. If a recipient’s original shot is not available, they can be vaccinated with the other one.
Updated
A leading epidemiologist has expressed concern at the number of Covid-positive people dying at home in Australia without having a test for the virus.
Associate Prof Sanjaya Senanayake, from the Australian National University, said there had been a number of deaths from Covid due to people developing severe symptoms at home without being tested and receiving medical assistance.
Figures reported by the ABC’s 7.30 programme suggest more than half of the deaths at home from Covid in NSW were not known to health authorities until a postmortem examination.
Prof Senanayake said on Monday:
If people came to hospital earlier it could be in fact a life-saving presentation.
If people did have Covid, the question is why didn’t they get tested, or [did] something prevent them getting Covid treatment such as the fear and stigma of it.
Updated
The Vietnamese government has been urged to recognise positive rapid coronavirus tests to help present a clearer picture of the latest outbreak in Ho Chi Minh City, the largest city in the country.
If the tests are accepted, it could lead to the city’s infection rate increasing by as much as 40%, according to state media.
Ho Chi Minh City has a population of about 9 million people and has so far registered some 80% of Vietnam’s more than 18,500 Covid deaths and half of its 756,000 cases.
The Reuters news agency reports:
Positive rapid tests of 150,000 people in the city since Aug. 20 have not been included in the overall tally, Tuoi Tre newspaper said, citing the deputy head of the city’s health department, Nguyen Huu Hung.
Like many countries, Vietnam only counts positive swab-based Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests.
The southern economic hub has recorded 372,180 infections overall. If 150,000 more cases were confirmed to be positive, it would reduce the city’s death rate from just over 3.8% to 2.75%.
The health ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
An anonymous official at the city’s health department also said 150,000 individuals were being treated, but had not undertaken swab tests due to insufficient resources.
Ho Chi Minh City is set to relax Covid restrictions and allow the resumption of some businesses from Friday.
Japan to lift Covid state of emergency at end of September
Meanwhile, in Japan, the Covid state of emergency will be lifted in all regions at the end of September, broadcaster NHK has reported today.
Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters on Monday that he will discuss whether to lift the state of emergency with a government expert panel on Tuesday.
The infectious Delta variant sparked a fifth wave of Covid in Japan that drove infections to record levels last month, reported the Reuters news agency.
To prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, the Japanese government extended emergency restrictions covering about 80% of the population until the end of September.
The curbs have included asking restaurants to close early and refrain from serving alcohol. Residents are currently being urged to work from home as much as possible and to cut down from travel.
Updated
Good morning. Tom Ambrose here and I’ll be bringing you the latest coronavirus news from around the world throughout the day.
We start with news that Northern Ireland is “no longer in a space where vaccine passports are required”, according to a DUP minister.
Economy minister Gordon Lyons said he did not think using vaccine certification to gain access to events or hospitality venues was the right policy for the region.
PA Media this morning reported him as saying:
I don’t think that we are in that space any more.
We’ve almost got 90% of our adult population vaccinated and you are now seeing the impact that that is having on the rate of transmission and hospitalisations as well.
However, other parties in Stormont have contrasting views. Sinn Fein previously it would be open to vaccine passports if the move was recommended by health chiefs, while the SDLP last week called for the introduction of a scheme as a way to boost vaccination rates.
While authorities in England have shelved plans for vaccine passports, Scotland and Wales are introducing schemes next month.
Updated
Summary
Hi, I’m handing over now to my colleague Tom Ambrose. This is a summary of the news from this morning.
- The British prime minister has finally agreed to meet the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group at Downing Street, well over a year after first promising to do so.
- South Korea has announced it will begin vaccinating children aged 12 to 17 and offering Covid-19 vaccine booster shots to those 75 years and above.
- The EU Commission is proposing an extension of the Covid-19 vaccine export control system, a spokesperson has told journalists.
- Foreign visitors who are fully vaccinated will be allowed to visit the popular tourist regions of Thailand from November, the government has announced.
- The organisation that ensures fair global access to Covid-19 vaccines is looking at changing its rules after the UK received more doses than Botswana, despite having better vaccine coverage.
- Thailand will further ease its coronavirus restrictions later this week, the country’s Covid-19 taskforce said on Monday.
- People living in poorer regions of England face longer waits for routine NHS care, according to analysis. The wait in the most deprived parts of the country is in some cases nearly twice as long, according to the Kings Fund Health thinktank.
- Iran, a country that has faced several deadly waves of Covid, is still struggling to overcome vaccine hesitancy, the Associated Press reports.
- The British education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, has called for teenagers to be vaccinated with ‘ “the same urgency and vigour’” that got jabs into the arms of adults.
- Australian authorities have announced plans to reopen locked-down Sydney using a two-tiered system that will give people who are vaccinated against Covid 19 more more freedoms than their unvaccinated neighbours for several weeks.
Updated
The British prime minister has finally agreed to meet the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group at Downing Street, well over a year after first promising to do so.
Robert Booth, social affairs correspondent, reports that representatives of more than 4,000 families bereaved by coronavirus will tomorrow afternoon press Boris Johnson to immediately start the public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic and place them at the heart of the process. For months they have accused Johnson of avoiding them and refusing to meet despite saying he would do so 397 days ago.
In a pointed move, after ministers were photographed squeezed around the cabinet table without masks, the bereaved are requesting Johnson meets them outdoors on Tuesday and that social distancing is maintained to ensure the meeting is conducted in a Covid-secure manner.
They are calling for the group to be consulted on the choice of chair for the public inquiry, which Johnson has so far said will start next spring.
Five familiy members and Elkan Abrahamson, a lawyer who supported Hillsborough families, will attend the meeting with Johnson and senior officials.
They also want a say over the terms of reference, who sits on the inquiry panel and to be “front and centre of the process”. They will ask Johnson to set out a timetable, including a start date for evidential hearings and a commitment from the government to introduce a bill into parliament requiring a “duty of candour” that they believe would increase transparency at the inquiry.
It comes days after an embarrassing U-turn by the Conservative party, which had refused the group’s representative access to this weekend’s party conference in Manchester. It reversed its decision after the group went public with the snub and said it was “error” that had subsequently been reviewed.
On 26 August 2020, Johnson said told Sky News “of course” he will meet the bereaved, but soon after said it was not possible. He did later visit the national Covid memorial wall of more than 150,000 hand-drawn red hearts that the group initiated on the South Bank of the Thames opposite parliament. But he did not meet members of the group.
Jo Goodman, co-founder of the bereaved group said: “It has been over a year since the prime minister first said he would meet us and in that time over 100,000 people across the country have lost their lives with Covid-19. One of the hardest parts of the pandemic for us has been seeing new families join each week with the same pain and grief that we’ve experienced and distressingly similar stories to our own.”
She said: “We first called for a rapid review last summer so that lessons could be learnt from the deaths of our loved ones to protect others, and we can’t help but feel that if we’d been listened to then, other lives might have been spared. We hope that the prime minister will listen to us tomorrow, and start the process to begin the inquiry immediately, whilst ensuring that the perspective of bereaved families is at its heart. Most of all, we hope that by sharing our stories, we can help to protect other families from the suffering and tragedy that we’ve been through.”
Downing Street has been contacted for comment.
Updated
South Korea has announced it will begin vaccinating children aged 12 to 17 and offering Covid-19 vaccine booster shots to those 75 years and above.
The vaccination advisory committee of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) has ruled that the benefits outweigh the risks in vaccinating children.
However the panel did not advise that the jabs be mandatory. Parents who have healthy children, such as those who do not have underlying conditions, are advised to weigh the relative benefits in making their decision, KDCA director Jeong Eun-kyeong told a news conference on Monday.
Countries around the world have differed in their approach to vaccinating children and teenagers who are far less at risk from Covid than adults.
The US had by August vaccinated 50% of 12- to 17-year-olds, while the UK began last week to to jab this age group, leaving it to young people themselves to decide whether to get vaccinated.
Jeong said the initial booster doses from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna will go to those with weakened immune systems or deemed to be at high risk – the elderly, nursing home patients and staff.
Booster jabs have caused debate globally with some experts warning that first vaccines should be shared with poorer countries before wealthy ones give extra doses to their elderly.
Updated
The EU Commission is proposing an extension of the Covid-19 vaccine export control system a spokesperson has told journalists.
The Commission introduced the export control mechanism on vaccines produced in EU countries in January - as a response to a shortfall in production from the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca earlier this month.
The proposed extension would keep controls in place beyond the end of this month.
Foreign visitors who are fully vaccinated will be allowed to visit the popular tourist regions of Thailand from November, the government has announced.
Thailand will end mandatory quarantine in Bangkok and nine other regions including Chang Mai and Pattaya, following the reopening of Phuket and Samui islands in pilot schemes earlier in the year.
A year and a half of strict entry policies have had a major impact on the tourist industry that was drawing 40 million visitors in 2019 before Covid struck.
Earlier, the government announced that Covid restrictions will be eased in provinces currently under “maximum control” allowing libraries, indoor sports centres and cinemas to reopen.
The easing of measures come as the country tries to increase the rate of vaccinations, after initial supply shortages. Less than a third of the population has been inoculated so far.
Pending Cabinet approval, Thailand will seek to buy 2.79m doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines and 165,000 AstraZeneca shots from Spain and 400,000 AstraZeneca doses sourced from Hungary, Reuters reports a spokesman saying.
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The organisation that ensures fair global access to Covid-19 vaccines is looking at changing its rules after the UK got more doses than Botswana, despite having better vaccine coverage.
Reuters reports that in March, as Britain led the world in vaccination rates and almost half its people had received a shot, Covax, the organisation meant to ensure fair global access to Covax-19 vaccines, allotted the country over half a million doses from its supplies.
By contrast, Botswana, which hadn’t even started its vaccination drive, was assigned 20,000 doses from the same batch of millions of Pfizer mRNA vaccines, according to publicly available documents detailing Covax’s allocations.
Other poorer nations, with fledgling vaccination drives at best, also received fewer shots than Britain. Rwanda and Togo were each allotted about 100,000 doses, and Libya nearly 55,000.
The distribution was driven by the methodology used by Covax, a programme co-led by the World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (Gavi). Since January, it has largely allocated doses proportionally among its members according to population size, but regardless of their vaccination coverage.
This made some rich nations, which already had many vaccines through separate deals with pharmaceutical firms, eligible for Covax doses alongside countries with no vaccines at all.
Six months later, Covax is planning to overhaul the allocation methodology to ensure it takes into account the proportion of a country’s population that has been vaccinated, including with shots bought directly from drugmakers, according to an internal Gavi document reviewed by Reuters.
The proposal will be discussed at the Gavi board meeting on Tuesday, and the change could be enacted in the fourth quarter of this year, the document said.
Asked why total vaccine coverage was not used earlier as a measure, Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO and Covax official, told Reuters that the allocation terms could not be changed without the consent of Covax’s more than 140 member countries, though he did not elaborate on the process of reaching consensus.
He added that hard data on vaccines’ efficacy, which strengthened the case for a change, was now available.
“What’s becoming interesting now, only in the last couple of months, is the divergence between cases and deaths as a result of vaccination coverage,” he said.
“We are learning that the single best indicator of mortality risk is the level of whole coverage, not just Covax coverage.”
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Thailand will further ease its coronavirus restrictions later this week, the country’s Covid-19 task force said on Monday.
Reuters reports this morning that from Friday more businesses, including spas and cinemas, will be allowed to reopen in 29 provinces including the capital Bangkok.
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NHS backlog has ‘hit the poor hardest’
People living in poorer regions of England face longer waits for routine NHS care, according to analysis. The wait in the most deprived parts of the country is in some cases nearly twice as long according to the Kings Fund Health think tank.
Leading NHS figures and health commentators have expressed concern that inequalities seen across healthcare have deepened significantly during the pandemic.
Despite the efforts of NHS staff who continued working during the pandemic, the backlog has grown to 5.61 million people – almost one in every 10 people in England.
Now analysis from the Kings Fund health thinktank, shared with the PA Media news agency and Panorama, shows that 7% of patients on waiting lists in the most deprived areas of the country have been waiting a year or more for treatment compared with 4% of those in the least deprived.
And the waiting lists appear to be growing faster in the poorest regions.
From April 2020 to July 2021, waiting lists have grown by 55% on average in the most deprived parts of the country compared with 36% in the richest areas.
The analysis comes as a poll from health and social care champion Healthwatch England showed the toll the waiting list is having on people’s physical and mental health.
A survey of 1,600 people who were either on the waiting list themselves or had a loved one in need of treatment, found that 54% said it was affecting their mental health while 57% said the wait was affecting their physical health.
Healthwatch England has set out a series of recommendations to the NHS in England including improving communication with people on the waiting list.
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Iran, a country that has faced several deadly waves of Covid, is still struggling to overcome vaccine hesitancy the Associated Press reports.
In the holy city of Qom, health officials are not using all the vaccine shots they have available. In one recent week, the city administered only 17,000 shots daily out of its capacity of 30,000 according to provincial health department chief Mohammad Reza Qadir told AP. He said some might have religious reasons for refusing the jab.
Overall across Iran – the Middle Eastern country hardest hit by the pandemic – there have been 5.5 million confirmed virus infections. More than 119,000 people have died, putting tremendous pressure on cemeteries across the country. Officials acknowledge the toll is likely far higher.
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The British education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has called for teenagers to be vaccinated with “the same urgency and vigour” that got jabs into the arms of adults.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph (£) this morning, Zahawi, who in his previous role was vaccines minister, said vaccines are vital for keeping children in school.
He committed to not letting attendances fall, stressing the damage done to children and families wellbeing by months of school closures.
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Australian authorities have announced plans to reopen locked-down Sydney using a two-tiered system that will give people who are vaccinated against Covid 19 more more freedoms than their unvaccinated neighbours for several weeks.
Movement restrictions across the wider New South Wales area will be lifted gradually between 11 October and 1 December as vaccination rates move from 70% to 90%.
People who are not fully vaccinated will be barred from joining the vaccinated to resume community sports, eating out or doing non essential shopping until the final date.
“Unlike most cases in the world, if you are not vaccinated you will have to wait at least four or five weeks … in order to participate in things that the rest of us can participate in,” state premier Gladys Berejiklian said in a televised briefing.
“If you want to be able to have a meal with friends and welcome people in your home, you have to get vaccinated.”
Berejiklian did not detail how the block on activity by the unvaccinated would be enforced.
Sydney, along with Melbourne and Canberra, has been in lockdown for several weeks, with the three cities bearing the brunt of a third wave of Covid-19 infections that has taken national case numbers to almost 100,000 – 68% recorded since mid-June.
The Delta-fuelled outbreak has divided state and territory leaders, with some presiding over virus-free parts of the country indicating they will defy a federal plan to reopen internal borders once the adult population reaches 80% vaccination, expected in late October.
In New South Wales, where around 60% of people aged 16 and over are fully inoculated, restaurants, pubs, retail stores, gyms and indoor recreation facilities may reopen on 11 October – days after the state is expected to reach 70% vaccination – with capacity limits.
Once 80% vaccination is achieved, expected a few weeks later, state-wide travel will be allowed. Limits on people attending funerals and weddings will be lifted, and the number of vaccinated people allowed to gather in a home will double to 10.
From 1 December, there will be no limits on home and informal outdoor gatherings. Capacity limits will remain at indoor venues, but masks will no longer required. Businesses may impose their own rules regarding customer vaccination.
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Good morning, I’m Harriet Grant taking over from my colleague Helen Sullivan on the Covid live blog, which will bring you news from around the world today.
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Australian state of New South Wales reports lowest cases in over a month
The Australian state of New South Wales, the centre of the country’s worst coronavirus outbreak, reported on Monday its lowest rise in Covid cases in more than a month as it begins to ease some tough restrictions amid higher vaccinations.
A total of 787 new locally acquired cases were reported, the majority in the state capital, Sydney, down from 961 a day earlier, according to a statement from the state health department. The state recorded 12 new deaths, taking the total number of fatalities from the latest outbreak to 309.
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New Zealand to pilot home isolation for some vaccinated travellers
New Zealand is to begin allowing small numbers of vaccinated travellers to isolate at home instead of in state-run quarantine facilities as part of a phased approach to re-opening its borders, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday.
The pilot project starting next month will be open to 150 people, who must be New Zealand citizens or residents and are fully vaccinated, Ardern said at a news conference.
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Life expectancy falls by most since second world war
The pandemic reduced life expectancy in 2020 by the largest amount since the second world war, according to a study published on Monday by Oxford University, with the life expectancy of American men dropping by more than two years.
Reuters: Life expectancy fell by more than six months compared with 2019 in 22 of the 29 countries analysed in the study, which spanned Europe, the US and Chile. There were reductions in life expectancy in 27 of the 29 countries overall.
The university said most life expectancy reductions across different countries could be linked to official Covid deaths. There have been nearly 5 million reported deaths caused by the new coronavirus so far, a Reuters tally shows.
“The fact that our results highlight such a large impact that is directly attributable to Covid-19 shows how devastating a shock it has been for many countries,” said Dr Ridhi Kashyap, co-lead author of the paper, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
There were greater drops in life expectancy for men than women in most countries, with the largest decline in American men, who saw life expectancy drop by 2.2 years relative to 2019.
Overall, men had more than a year shaved off in 15 countries, compared to women in 11 countries. That wiped out the progress on mortality that had been made in the previous 5.6 years.
In the US, the rise in mortality was mainly among those of working age and those under 60, while in Europe, deaths among people aged over 60 contributed more significantly to the increase in mortality.
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Fourth Brazil UN attendee tests positive
Pedro Guimaraes, a member of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s delegation to the United Nations, has tested positive for Covid, the CEO of state lender Caixa Economica Federal said on his one of his social media accounts on Sunday.
Guimaraes, who said he was fully vaccinated, is the fourth member of the delegation that was with Bolsonaro in New York for his address to the UN to test positive.
He said he is asymptomatic, but has been isolated since Wednesday, when he returned to Brazil from New York.
Health minister Marcelo Queiroga, Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo and one diplomat also tested positive for Covid. Queiroga, diagnosed during the visit, is still in isolation in a New York hotel.
The president said on Sunday he had a negative result in a Covid-19 test. Since the arrival to Brazil, all members of Bolsonaro’s delegation are in isolation and have taken tests due to contact with the health minister.
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Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coronavirus coverage.
Pedro Guimaraes, a member of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s delegation to the United Nations, has tested positive for Covid, the CEO of state lender Caixa Economica Federal said on his one of his social media accounts on Sunday.
Guimaraes, who said he was fully vaccinated, is the fourth member of the delegation that was with Bolsonaro in New York for his address to the United Nations to test positive.
Health minister Marcelo Queiroga, Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo and one diplomat also tested positive for Covid-19. Queiroga, diagnosed during the visit, is still in isolation in a New York hotel.
Meanwhile the pandemic reduced life expectancy in 2020 by the largest amount since the second world war, according to a study published on Monday by Oxford University, with the life expectancy of American men dropping by more than two years.
Here are the other key recent developments:
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Violent clashes and mass brawls have broken out in Norway’s biggest cities after streets, bars, restaurants and nightclubs were filled with people celebrating the end of Covid restrictions.
- In the US, health authorities have said they are confident there will be enough vaccine shots for both qualified older Americans seeking booster jabs, as well as young children.
- The biggest state intervention in the UK’s labour market in peacetime comes to an end this week when the government finally winds up its furlough support. The wage subsidy that has been in place for 18 months and has cost £70bn will no longer be open to struggling firms.
- The Russian president Vladimir Putin has ended his short spell in self-isolation and has spent several days on holiday in Siberia where he was hiking and fishing, the Kremlin said on Sunday.
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In Scotland, the army could drive ambulances for longer than the two months originally planned, according to the Scottish secretary, Alister Jack.
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Also in Scotland, the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has urged the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) to investigate plans for vaccine passports.
- Hollywood studios are planning a £250m-plus UK marketing blitz to promote the return of blockbusters to the big screen over the next 18 months, as the much-delayed premiere of James Bond: No Time to Die gives the industry the confidence to plot a post-pandemic boom in new releases.
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