Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Nadeem Badshah (now); Mattha Busby ,Matthew Weaver, Martin Belam ,Helen Sullivan (earlier)

UK ‘not out of the woods yet’ says Whitty – as it happened

A patient is brought into the Royal London hospital in London.
A patient is brought into the Royal London hospital in London. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

This blog is closing now but thanks very much for reading. We’ll be back in a few hours with more rolling coverage of the pandemic from all around the world.

In the meantime you can catch up with all our coverage of the pandemic here.

US president Joe Biden said his administration is reviewing when it can lift restrictions that ban most-non U.S. citizens from traveling to the US from much of Europe after German chancellor Angela Merkel raised the issue.

“It’s in process now,” Biden said of discussions about when restrictions could be lifted, Reuters reports.

He said he is likely to be able to answer “within the next several days what is likely to happen... I’m waiting to hear from our ... COVID team as to when that should be done.”

The latest Covid situation in Australia:

Brazil registered 1,548 Covid-19 deaths on Thursday and 52,789 additional cases, according to data released by the nation’s health ministry.

The South American country has now registered 538,942 total coronavirus deaths and 19,262,518 total confirmed cases, Reuters reports.

The leaders of the Chilean late-stage human trial of the CoronaVac Covid-19 vaccine developed by Chinese pharmaceutical firm Sinovac recommended a third dose of the jab, saying studies of participants showed their protecting antibody levels were lower after six months.

The trial leaders said that an in vitro trial to determine the vaccine’s effectiveness against the more contagious Delta strain of the virus showed a four-fold reduction in neutralising effect against it, compared to a less severe, three-fold reduction previously reported by Chinese scientists, Reuters reports.

Updated

The UK is “not out of the woods yet” and the public should approach the end of coronavirus restrictions next Monday with caution, Professor Chris Whitty said.

England’s Chief Medical Officer warned that the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 is currently doubling about every three weeks and could reach “quite scary numbers” if the trend continues.

Speaking at a webinar hosted by the Science Museum, Prof Whitty said: “I don’t think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast.”

He added: “We are not by any means out of the woods yet on this, we are in much better shape due to the vaccine programme, and drugs and a variety of other things.

“But this has got a long way to run in the UK, and it’s got even further to run globally.”

Israel is planning tougher health restrictions to combat rising cases of Covid-19 as the Delta variant spreads, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

If the new plans are approved by parliament, only those vaccinated or who have recovered from coronavirus will be allowed to take part in indoor events of more than 100 people, AFP reports.

They will also have to wear masks, except for eating and drinking.

The proposal is a joint plan drawn up by the prime minister’s office as well as the health and economy ministries.

Mexico’s health ministry reported 12,821 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 233 more fatalities.

It brings the total figures to 2,629,648 infections and 235,740 deaths, Reuters reports.

The government has said the real number of cases is likely significantly higher, and separate data published recently suggested the actual death toll could be 60% higher than the official count.

After daily record numbers of Covid-19 infections in recent days, Senegalese health officials recommended that people refrain from traveling for the Eid al-Adha Muslim festival set to take place next week.

Health minister Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr recommended mask-wearing at all times and avoiding “movement and travel during the festival, AFP reports.

Diouf Sarr also recommended working from home whenever possible and reducing staff elsewhere.

Infections have been rising across the continent, with Senegal itself recording a record 733 new infections on Wednesday, followed by 674 on Thursday.

A summary of today's developments

  • The World Health Organization’s emergency committee has maintained its stance that proof of Covid-19 vaccination should not be required for international travel, amid controversy over countries blocking the entry of travellers if they are unvaccinated. They said vaccinations should not be the only condition to permit international travel, given limited global access and inequitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
  • The head of the WHO has called on China to cooperate better in the next phase of an investigation into the origins of the pandemic, demanding more access to raw data. The initial investigation and report have faced criticism for lacking transparency and access, and for not evaluating the lab-leak theory more deeply – a mere 440 words of the report were dedicated to discussing and dismissing it.
  • Abu Dhabi has announced a partial lockdown and new entry requirements in the emirate starting July 19, from midnight until 5 am, Reuters reports.
  • European Union member states have agreed to add Ukraine to a list of countries from which travellers can enter the European Union during the coronavirus pandemic, while Rwanda and Thailand were removed. The EU’s eastern neighbour joins a “green list” of only around 20 countries, which also includes the likes of Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the US, the bloc said.
  • Spain’s 14-day infection rate surpassed 500 per 100,000 people for the first time since mid-February, health ministry data showed.
  • Millions of Chinese people face bans from public spaces including schools, hospitals and shopping malls unless they get a Covid-19 vaccine, under new edicts covering nearly two dozen cities and counties. In Chuxiong city in the southern province of Yunnan, those who fail to meet the deadline “will not be allowed to enter a number of essential public facilities”.
  • Coronavirus-linked deaths in Africa surged by 43% in a week, driven by a lack of intensive-care beds and oxygen, AFP reports citing the World Health Organization. Fatalities associated with Covid in the WHO’s Africa region, which includes north Africa, rose to 6,273 in the week of 5-11 July, compared with 4,384 in the previous week.
  • Saudi Arabia has arrested more than 120 people allegedly suspected of supplying or procuring fraudulent coronavirus vaccine and test certificates, official media said, two days before a tightly controlled hajj amid some of the strictest and most controversial rules in the world
  • More than twice as many children and adolescents were referred to mental health services year on year in England as cases hit a record high, amid warnings that waiting lists are so long that significant numbers of young people would not get treatment in time to prevent them growing into adults with “entrenched mental health issues that could have been avoided had we been able to intervene earlier”.
  • Hundreds of thousands of people left the Bangladesh capital today in every available car, train and bus after authorities lifted a coronavirus lockdown despite rising infections and deaths. The government has allowed an eight-day respite after two weeks of lockdown which has seen troops patrolling the streets to keep people in their homes. With the nation about to celebrate the Eid al-Adha Muslim festival, thousands of buses returned to highways, ferries left the capital for coastal ports and trains started rolling, AFP reports. Authorities said they eased restrictions to help the economy.
  • The Canadian government has rejected proposals to have Ontario residents line up inside a US border tunnel to tap into a surplus of Covid-19 vaccine held by Michigan, a mayor said. Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens proposed that Canadians would stand along the border inside the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel in the Detroit River while health care workers jab them.

Facebook is not doing enough to stop the spread of false claims about Covid-19 and vaccines, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.

The social media firm, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp, needs to work harder to remove inaccurate vaccine information from its platform, Psaki said.

She said 12 people were responsible for almost 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. The finding was reported in May by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, but Facebook has disputed the methodology.

“All of them remain active on Facebook,” Psaki said. She added that Facebook also “needs to move more quickly to remove harmful, violative posts”.

The platform has introduced rules against making certain false claims about coronavirus and its vaccines, Reuters reports.

Updated

Abu Dhabi announces partial lockdown

Abu Dhabi has announced a partial lockdown and new entry requirements in the emirate from 19 July, from midnight until 5am, Reuters reports.

The Emergency, Crisis and Disasters Committee said: “National Sterilisation Programme in the Emirate has been launched … The movement of traffic and the public will be restricted and there will be no transportation services and the public must stay at home except for emergencies and getting essential supplies.”

Updated

Industry leaders are demanding that the UK’s government tackle widespread staff shortages caused by workers self-isolating en masse after being “pinged” by NHS test and trace.

Online fashion retailer Asos joined carmakers Nissan and Rolls-Royce on a fast-growing roster of businesses wrestling with disruption caused by absent staff on Thursday.

From 16 August, those who have received both doses of a vaccine, or are under 18, will not have to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.

But parts of the economy are at risk of shutting down long before then, industry leaders have warned, amid predictions that rising case numbers could force more than 1 million people to stay at home.

Updated

The US had administered 336,054,953 doses of Covid-19 vaccines in the country as of Thursday morning and distributed 388,738,495 doses, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Those figures are up from the 335,487,779 vaccine doses the CDC said had gone into arms by July 14 out of 388,295,385 doses delivered, Reuters reports.

The agency said 185,135,757 people had received at least one dose as of Thursday, while 160,408,538 people had been fully vaccinated.

Updated

European Union member states have agreed to add Ukraine to a list of countries from which travellers can enter the European Union during the coronavirus pandemic, while Rwanda and Thailand were removed.

The EU’s eastern neighbour joins a “green list” of only around 20 countries, which also includes the likes of Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the US, the bloc said.

Brussels’ classification does not prevent member states from imposing requirements like testing or quarantine on incoming travellers from countries on the list, AFP reports.

Updated

Tyson Fury’s world heavyweight title defence against Deontay Wilder, originally scheduled for 24 July, has officially been postponed after Fury tested positive for coronavirus.

It was reported last week that Fury had contracted Covid-19, with the news confirmed on Thursday by the British boxer’s US-based promoter Top Rank. The fight will now take place on 9 October at the same venue, the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Updated

Spain’s coronavirus infections rose by 27,688 on Thursday, after a similar increase the previous day, Reuters reports.
The 14-day infection rate surpassed 500 per 100,000 people for the first time since mid-February, health ministry data showed. The rate among young people aged 20-29, who have been at the centre of the latest surge in cases as most of them have not yet been vaccinated, hit 1,581 per 100,000. The death toll rose by 41 to 81,084, although the health ministry added most of the new deaths retroactively over several previous days, with just three registered in the past 24 hours.

Canada will allow cruise ships back into its waters starting in November but they must fully comply with public health requirements that have yet to be finalized, Reuters reports.

Earlier this year, Canada extended a ban on cruise ships until February 2022, citing the need to protect public health.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said in a statement the restriction would now be lifted on November 1, 2021.

“We will welcome cruise ships - an important part of our tourism sector - back in Canadian waters for the 2022 season,” he said.

People are shopping at a crowded market after authorities eased some coronavirus restrictions, following a drop in coronavirus cases in Kolkata, India.
People are shopping at a crowded market after authorities eased some coronavirus restrictions, following a drop in coronavirus cases in Kolkata, India. Photograph: Sudipta Das/Pacific Press/REX/Shutterstock

Business owners and staff across Sydney say they remain totally confused by the lack of clarity surrounding who is and isn’t an essential worker during the current five-week lockdown.

Guardian Australia visited numerous shops across the city on Thursday and almost everyone said the same thing: “The advice is confusing.”

The efficacy of a Nobel prize-winning anti-parasite drug for treating Covid-19 is in serious doubt after a major study suggesting the treatment is effective against the virus was withdrawn due to “ethical concerns”.

The preprint study on the efficacy and safety of ivermectin in treating Covid-19, led by Dr Ahmed Elgazzar from Benha University in Egypt, was published on the Research Square website in November.

It claimed to be a randomised control trial, a type of study crucial in medicine because it is considered to provide the most reliable evidence on the effectiveness of interventions due to the minimal risk of confounding factors influencing the results. Elgazzar is listed as chief editor of the Benha Medical Journal, and is an editorial board member.

Today so far...

  • The World Health Organization’s emergency committee has maintained its stance that proof of Covid-19 vaccination should not be required for international travel, amid controversy over countries blocking the entry of travellers if they are unvaccinated. They said vaccinations should not be the only condition to permit international travel, given limited global access and inequitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
  • The head of the WHO has called on China to cooperate better in the next phase of an investigation into the origins of the pandemic, demanding more access to raw data. The initial investigation and report have faced criticism for lacking transparency and access, and for not evaluating the lab-leak theory more deeply – a mere 440 words of the report were dedicated to discussing and dismissing it.
  • Millions of Chinese people face bans from public spaces including schools, hospitals and shopping malls unless they get a Covid-19 vaccine, under new edicts covering nearly two dozen cities and counties. In Chuxiong city in the southern province of Yunnan, those who fail to meet the deadline “will not be allowed to enter a number of essential public facilities”.
  • Coronavirus-linked deaths in Africa surged by 43% in a week, driven by a lack of intensive-care beds and oxygen, AFP reports citing the World Health Organization. Fatalities associated with Covid in the WHO’s Africa region, which includes north Africa, rose to 6,273 in the week of 5-11 July, compared with 4,384 in the previous week.
  • Saudi Arabia has arrested more than 120 people allegedly suspected of supplying or procuring fraudulent coronavirus vaccine and test certificates, official media said, two days before a tightly controlled hajj amid some of the strictest and most controversial rules in the world
  • More than twice as many children and adolescents were referred to mental health services year on year in England as cases hit a record high, amid warnings that waiting lists are so long that significant numbers of young people would not get treatment in time to prevent them growing into adults with “entrenched mental health issues that could have been avoided had we been able to intervene earlier”.
  • Hundreds of thousands of people left the Bangladesh capital today in every available car, train and bus after authorities lifted a coronavirus lockdown despite rising infections and deaths. The government has allowed an eight-day respite after two weeks of lockdown which has seen troops patrolling the streets to keep people in their homes. With the nation about to celebrate the Eid al-Adha Muslim festival, thousands of buses returned to highways, ferries left the capital for coastal ports and trains started rolling, AFP reports. Authorities said they eased restrictions to help the economy.
  • The Canadian government has rejected proposals to have Ontario residents line up inside a US border tunnel to tap into a surplus of Covid-19 vaccine held by Michigan, a mayor said. Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens proposed that Canadians would stand along the border inside the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel in the Detroit River while health care workers jab them.

Updated

Ireland has registered its highest daily number of Covid-19 infections since February, with the health ministry reporting 994 cases up from an average of under 500 cases per day last week.

The deputy prime minister, Leo Varadkar, earlier told journalists that an expected surge in infections from the Delta variant of Covid-19 was happening sooner than expected but that there was “no reason to catastrophise” or to delay the country’s cautious reopening plans.

Updated

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has faced chants of “free the vaccine” in the US today due to her opposition to a patent waiver for Covid vaccines, which campaigners claim is costing lives and prolonging the pandemic.

It comes after activists protested outside Pfizer’s headquarters in New York City yesterday, blocking roads and demanding the pharmaceutical drops patents on its Covid vaccine to rapidly increase access around the world.

Meanwhile, charity Global Justice director, Nick Dearden, claims that fellow pharmaceutical giant Moderna is also opposed to a so-called people’s vaccines due to profit motives.

Updated

The World Health Organization has warned that “more dangerous” variants of Covid-19 could spread across the world as global infections soared to half a million daily, largely driven by the virulent Delta strain.

An AFP tally of official sources found that after an initial dip, cases have been rising again worldwide since the end of June, topping 540,000 on Tuesday and again yesterday.

“The pandemic is nowhere near finished,” the WHO’s emergency committee said in a statement. It highlighted “the strong likelihood for the emergence and global spread of new and possibly more dangerous variants of concern that may be even more challenging to control”.

Brazil’s president, whose popularity has dipped due to his handling of the pandemic, does not have a timeline for leaving hospital but his health is “evolving in a satisfactory manner” after he was admitted this week after complications from a 2018 stabbing.

“Jair Messias Bolsonaro, remains hospitalized at Hospital Vila Nova Star, in Sao Paulo, evolving in a satisfactory clinical and laboratorial manner,” a note from his doctors said, adding that non-surgical treatment would be continued.

Bolsonaro flew from the capital Brasilia to Sao Paulo on Wednesday to undergo tests, and possible emergency surgery, to unblock an obstructed intestine after days of hiccups, Reuters reports.

The right-wing former army captain has been hospitalised several times in the wake of the near-fatal campaign trail stabbing, which perforated his intestine. He also caught Covid-19 last year.

“I thank everyone for their support and prayers,” Bolsonaro said in a Facebook post shortly after the news of his transfer to Sao Paulo was announced. Along with the message, he shared a photo of himself shirtless with his eyes closed and lying in a hospital bed covered in sensors and cables. Next to him, stood what appeared to be a priest with a crucifix.
The photo, which was accompanied with a text railing against his leftist opponents, led some to allege that Bolsonaro might be leveraging his condition for political gain.

Updated

More than twice as many children and adolescents were referred to mental health services year on year in England as cases hit a record high.

The findings have been called “heartbreaking” and “awful” by the new chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Dr Elaine Lockhart also warned that waiting lists were so long that significant numbers of young people would not get treatment in time to prevent them growing into adults with “entrenched mental health issues that could have been avoided had we been able to intervene earlier”.

It is difficult to consider these numbers and know that behind each one is a child or young person, and a family, who are in distress. Children and young people’s mental health has been neglected for years and in the meantime, we know that the need is increasing. We were already struggling to meet demand before the pandemic. But the pandemic has absolutely resulted in increase in mental health disorders in children and young people.

Updated

Hundreds more bodies than usual are being taken for funerals every day in junta-ruled Myanmar as a new wave of Covid-19 sweeps through the country, services transporting the bodies and arranging ceremonies said.

The number of funerals at the Yay Way cemetery in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon, was around 200 per day over the past week, well over double the number that would normally be expected, funeral services said.

Reuters reports there were similar increases at two other cemeteries in the city with 400 to 500 people being cremated there per day, they said.

“We have to transport the dead bodies to different cemeteries. We are making more than 40 trips a day,” said Bo Sein, 52, who operates a charity service transporting bodies.

“Seeing the dead bodies at the cemetery today, I was thinking that it will not be easy to continue like this. The rich and the poor, all died of Covid,” said Bo Sein, who himself kits up in protective equipment to transport the bodies.

The founder of another free funeral service in Yangon, who declined to be named for fear of retribution, said he had called for volunteers because his 18 team members could no longer cope.

Coronavirus cases started to rise in Myanmar in June, and have soared in the past two weeks, with a record 7,089 infections reported on Wednesday.

According to official figures, there have been more than 208,000 infections and 4,181 deaths in the country since the start of the pandemic. Health workers believe the case numbers are far higher than officially reported because testing collapsed after the military seized power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February.

The Canadian government has rejected proposals to have Ontario residents line up inside a US border tunnel to tap into a surplus of Covid-19 vaccine held by Michigan, a mayor said.

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens proposed that Canadians would stand along the border inside the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel in the Detroit River while health care workers jab them.

“We’re not trying to send a man to the moon here. We’re using the infrastructure to accomplish a shared goal,” Dilkens told the Detroit Free Press. “This is a sensible, reasonable alternative to vaccines heading to the landfill.”

Motor vehicle travel between the countries is prohibited during the pandemic except for commercial truck traffic and workers deemed essential, the AP reports. Dilkens said partnering with Michigan, which has a vaccine surplus, would reduce the waiting time for Canadians who need a second shot.

But the Canada Border Services Agency told Dilkens that the tunnel clinic could disrupt travel and carry “significant security implications.”

Separately, Public Health Agency of Canada warned there could be trouble if the person giving the shot reached across the tunnel’s white line into Canada. “A vaccine cannot be imported into Canadian space without the express consent of Health Canada,” said Kathy Thompson, executive vice president at the agency.

More than 500,000 vaccine doses held by Michigan are set to expire by early August, said Lynn Sutfin, spokeswoman at the state health department. “It’s dead,” Dilkens said of his plan. “Our government will not let this happen.”

Updated

Covid deaths in Africa rise by 43% in a week

Coronavirus-linked deaths in Africa surged by 43% in a week, driven by a lack of intensive-care beds and oxygen, AFP reports citing the World Health Organization.

Fatalities associated with Covid in the WHO’s Africa region, which includes north Africa, rose to 6,273 in the week of 5-11 July, compared with 4,384 in the previous week.

The agency’s regional director, Matshidiso Moeti, told a virtual press conference that the rise was “a clear warning sign that hospitals in the most affected countries are reaching breaking point”.

It is crucial that African countries beef up oxygen production to help patients suffering from the disease’s worst symptoms, she said, speaking from Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of the Congo.

The WHO said the rise in deaths paralleled a chronic shortage of vaccines, a spread in the more contagious Delta variant, which was now being detected in 21 African countries, along with public fatigue over prevention measures.

Africa has officially recorded over 6m cases of Covid-19, a figure that is far lower than on other continents but one that experts say is likely to be a big underestimate.

Updated

UK records 63 new deaths and 48,553 new cases

The UK has recorded another sharp rise in Covid cases and deaths in its latest figures. It recorded 63 fatalities, a day after recording 49 new deaths. This is the highest daily increase in deaths since 26 March and underlines warnings that while the vaccine programme has weakened the link between new cases and deaths it has not broken it.

It brings the UK death toll from the virus to 128,593. Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have now been 154,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid was mentioned on the death certificate.

New cases are now at 48,553, the highest level since January.

Updated

The head of the WHO has called on China to cooperate better in the next phase of an investigation into the origins of the pandemic, demanding more access to raw data, AFP reports.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva that the UN health agency had developed a framework for moving forward with the second phase of the investigation into how the pandemic started.

Earlier this year, a WHO mission to China to investigate the origins of the virus was severely hampered by strict Chinese oversight and controls.

Ghebreyesus said:

We hope there will be better cooperation to get to the bottom of what happened.

One problem is sharing raw data and I said it at the conclusion of the first phase, that there is this problem and it has to be addressed...

There was a premature push to ... especially reduce one of the options like the lab theory.”

In their long-delayed report published in late March, the international team and their Chinese counterparts drew no firm conclusions, instead ranking a number of hypotheses according to how likely they believed they were.

The report said the virus jumping from bats to humans via an intermediate animal was the most probable scenario, while a theory involving the virus leaking from a laboratory was “extremely unlikely”.

The investigation and report have faced criticism for lacking transparency and access, and for not evaluating the lab-leak theory more deeply - a mere 440 words of the report were dedicated to discussing and dismissing it.

Long dismissed as a rightwing conspiracy theory, and vehemently rejected by Beijing, the idea that Covid-19 may have emerged from a lab leak has been gaining increasing momentum in the United States especially.

Ghebreyesus, who has continued to insist that all theories remain on the table, insisted on Thursday that more investigation was needed.

He said:

I was a lab technician myself, an immunologist, and have worked in the lab, and lab accidents happen.

It’s common. I have seen it happening,” he said, stressing that “checking what happened, especially in our labs, is important. We need information, direct information on what the situation of these labs was before, at the start of the pandemic.

He had previously lamented that the international team did not have access to all the raw data needed to make a proper assessment.

For the next phase of the investigation, he said:

I hope there will be better cooperation, and we have continued the engagement with China, and also with (other) member states ... to get into the bottom of what happened.

Updated

Portugal has extended Covid restrictions to a wider area as the authorities scramble to salvage the summer holiday season, Reuters reports.

Cabinet minister Mariana Vieira da Silva told a news conference:

We continue in a race against time between the vaccination and the pandemic. The situation continues to deteriorate.

Last week the government designated 60 municipalities as high or high-risk, but this number has risen to 90 as the more contagious Delta variant continues to spread, already representing all new cases in the Lisbon area and the popular Algarve region.

A night curfew starting at 11pm is in place in the 90 municipalities, which include Lisbon, Porto and tourist magnet Albufeira, where working from home also remains compulsory whenever possible. Mainland Portugal has 278 municipalities in total.

In 47 of the designated 90 municipalities – where the risk of transmission is deemed higher – people wanting to dine indoors at restaurants on Friday evenings or at the weekend must present a negative coronavirus test, a vaccination certificate or proof of recovery.

Supermarkets will from now on be able to sell rapid coronavirus tests, Vieira da Silva said.

Case numbers in Portugal, which has a population of 10 million, have been rising steadily in recent weeks, returning to levels last seen when the country was under a strict lockdown. It reported over 4,000 cases on Wednesday for the first time since February.

Daily deaths and hospitalisations remain well below February levels, with new cases primarily reported among younger, unvaccinated people.

Authorities have accelerated the inoculation rollout, but on Thursday, they temporarily suspended an “open house” vaccination service that allowed people over 40 to get the shot without booking an appointment in advance.

Updated

The tourist-dependent island of Mauritius has opened its borders to vaccinated visitors after being closed for 16 months, Bloomberg reports.

The reopening is part of a two-phase strategy to attract tourists to the Indian Ocean island economy whose recovery hinges on a revival in the industry, it says.

Police have fired teargas to disperse demonstrators in Paris, as thousands of people protested throughout France over new coronavirus restrictions.

Protests began in the French capital on Wednesday morning as the annual military parade for Bastille Day was taking place along the famous Champs-Élysées watched by President Emmanuel Macron.

The demonstrators are unhappy at the decision announced on Monday to oblige health workers to get vaccinated and bring in a vaccine health pass for most public places.

Unvaccinated people would require, for example, a negative test result to enter restaurants.

Read the full story here:

Updated

One of Nigeria’s largest universities has sent residential students home and said it would suspend physical attendance of lectures amid rising Covid diagnoses in the Lagos institution’s medical centre.

“To check the spread of Covid-19 on campus, the university senate has directed that all students vacate the halls of residence latest by 12pm on 15 July,” it said in a statement.

Lectures at the University of Lagos (Unilag) will be delivered virtually from 26 July in line with social and physical distance guidelines, it said. Last week, Lagos state governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu urged residents to comply with Covid protocols as he warned of a third pandemic wave.

“The Unilag community has also been affected by this potential 3rd wave, with an increase in the number of patients presented to the Unilag medical centre with flu-like symptoms which are similar to Covid-19,” the school said.

“The medical centre hereby assures all members of the university community, that all necessary actions in line with the federal and Lagos state government guidelines have been taken regarding this potential threat in our community,” it said.

Nigeria has barred passengers who are not citizens or permanent residents from entering the country if they have been in South Africa in the past 14 days over coronavirus concerns, AFP reports.

The decision announced last month comes almost two months after similar restrictions were imposed on travellers coming from Brazil, India and Turkey, sparked by the rise of more virulent Covid strains.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will share proposals for a phase 2 study into the origins of the coronavirus with member states tomorrow, its emergency director, Mike Ryan, has said.

“We look forward to working with our Chinese counterparts on that process and the director-general will outline measures to member states,” Ryan said.

Earlier, Ghebreyesus told reporters that investigations into the origins of Covid-19 in China were being hampered by the lack of raw data on the first days of its spread there.

Writing this week for the Guardian, Tory Shepherd reports that the idea of an accidental lab leak has recently gained some traction despite initial conspiracy theory claims.

A broad scientific consensus that it is possible but unlikely that the coronavirus leaked from the lab remains, but there has been a political shift.

Dr John Lee, a senior fellow at both the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre and Washington DC’s Hudson Institute, says when the outbreak began, US intelligence agencies were divided. Maybe 60% thought it was zoonotic and 40% thought it came from a lab, he says.

“Trump then politicised it by saying he thought it came from the lab and that caused a lot of the media to dismiss it as a Trump fantasy,” he says. “Trump told so many exaggerations or lies that it was easy to dismiss.”

The terms of reference of the previous WHO mission, agreed with China, were to study the potential animal origins of the coronavirus. It did not include provisions for an audit of the WIV laboratory or to look into so-called “gain of function” research at the lab into viruses, which the Chinese are unlikely to have agreed to. During that mission to Wuhan, researchers spent just three hours at the lab.

However, in public comments team members were sceptical of the lab leak theory after their visit, on the basis of what they were allowed to see – although that does not rule out other material having been hidden.

And China, as Ghebreyesus made clear, did not provide all the information that many had been hoping for, including full epidemiological data on 174 early cases.

Updated

Increased drinking during the Covid pandemic may have fuelled a sharp rise in deaths from diseases caused by alcohol, data for England suggests. While hospitality venues closed for much of last year during lockdown, figures suggest an increase in drinking at home.

According to a report by Public Health England, which looked at alcohol consumption and harm during the pandemic, the number of deaths in England from diseases caused by drinking increased by 20% in 2020 compared with 2019.

In particular, there was a rise of almost 11% in deaths from mental and behavioural disorders due to alcohol, an increase of more than 15% in deaths from alcohol poisoning, and an almost 21% rise in deaths from alcoholic liver disease – with the latter condition accounting for more than 80% of the alcohol-specific deaths. By contrast, deaths from alcoholic liver disease rose by about 3% between 2018 and 2019.

Proof of Covid vaccination should not be required for international travel, says WHO

The World Health Organization’s emergency committee has maintained its stance that proof of Covid-19 vaccination should not be required for international travel, amid controversy over countries blocking the entry of travellers if they are unvaccinated.

The independent experts said vaccinations should not be the only condition to permit international travel, given limited global access and inequitable distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, Reuters reports.

The experts had previously said that requiring proof of vaccination deepens inequities and promotes unequal freedom of movement. Poorer countries with less access to vaccinations could face exclusion if such measures are put into place, some health experts have said.

Updated

More than 5,000 anti-vaccine protesters rallied in Athens yesterday to oppose plans to make Covid jabs available to children 15 and older.

Shouting “take your vaccines and get out of here!” and calling on prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to resign, the protesters gathered outside parliament under heavy police presence, Reuters reports. Protesters chanted “Hands off our kids” and held up a banner reading, “We say no to vaccine poison”, ABC reports.

About 41% of Greeks are fully vaccinated. On Monday, the government ordered the mandatory vaccination of healthcare workers and nursing home staff following a steep rise in new Covid-19 infections in the middle of the tourism season.

Anti-vaccine protesters take part in a rally on 14 July in front of the Greek parliament in Athens after the government announced mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations for all health workers.
Anti-vaccine protesters take part in a rally on 14 July in front of the Greek parliament in Athens after the government announced mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations for all health workers. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

“Every person has the right to choose. We’re choosing that the government does not choose for us,” said Faidon Vovolis, a cardiologist, who has questioned the scientific research around face masks and the vaccine and heads the “Free Again” movement, which called the protest, Reuters reports.

One of the UK’s leading childhood health experts this month said there is not enough evidence to support vaccinating children against Covid “I’m not convinced that the evidence base there is strong enough to support vaccination of children, because we don’t have complete safety data for the vaccines that we would want to use,” he said.

Another said that since teenagers were at extremely low risk of Covid, “vaccines must be exceptionally safe” for there to be a significant benefit, and that “it is not immoral to think that they may be better protected by natural immunity generated through infection than by asking them to take the possible risk of a vaccine”.

A country of 11 million, more than 444,700 people have been infected in Greece since the pandemic began and 12,782 have died. Authorities recorded nearly 3,000 new infections yesterday.

Updated

UK prime minister Boris Johnson has said it is “highly probable” that the worst of the pandemic is over provided people are careful when restrictions lift in England on Monday.

In a speech in Coventry, he said:

I wish I could say that this pandemic that we have been going through is over and I wish I could say that from Monday we could simply throw caution to the winds and behave exactly as we did before we’d ever heard of Covid.

But what I can say is that if we are careful and if we continue to respect this disease and its continuing menace then it is highly probable - almost all the scientists are agreed on this - the worst of the pandemic is behind us.

There are difficult days and weeks ahead as we deal with the current wave of the Delta variant and there will be sadly more hospitalisation and more deaths but with every day that goes by we build higher the wall of vaccine acquired immunity.

Johnson added that the UK’s economy had been “unbalanced” before the pandemic.

We need to say from the beginning that, before the pandemic began, the UK had and still has a more unbalanced economy than almost all our immediate competitors in Europe. And when I say unbalanced, I mean that for too many people, geography turns out to be destiny.

Take life expectancy, even before Covid hit. It is an outrage that a man in Glasgow or Blackpool has an average of 10 years less on this planet than someone growing up in Hart in Hampshire or in Rutland. I don’t know what people do in Rutland to live to prestigious ages, who knows, but they do. There is glaring imbalance.

Saudi Arabia has arrested more than 120 people allegedly suspected of supplying or procuring fraudulent coronavirus vaccine and test certificates, official media said, two days before a tightly controlled hajj.

The state-run SPA news agency said nine health ministry officials are among the accused, who have all reportedly pleaded guilty.

Some 60,000 Saudi residents with vaccine certificates will join this year’s religious pilgrimage, the second time the gathering has been massively curtailed because of pandemic restrictions, AFP reports.

The suspects in the fraudulent certificates case are alleged to have used social media to advertise their services. These included changing infection status, vaccination status and whether one dose or two had been administered, SPA reported.

Twenty-one people – nine Saudi citizens and 12 residents – are accused of acting as intermediaries in the fraud. Those accused of using the illicit services are 76 citizens and 16 residents.

Saudi authorities announced this month that two health ministry officials were among several suspects arrested in a similar conspiracy to change coronavirus data illegally.

As part of some of the strictest and most controversial rules in the world, only the vaccinated will be able to enter government buildings, educational establishments or entertainment venues or use public transport as of August, and only vaccinated workers in both the public and private sectors will be allowed to return to the workplace.

Within 72 hours of the French learning they would soon need to be vaccinated or tested to go to the cafe, more than 3 million had booked appointments and France had broken its vaccination record, administering 800,000 shots in a single day.

At the same time, daily infections, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, continued to climb, reaching nearly 9,000 on Wednesday – and on Bastille Day, about 20,000 demonstrators nationwide protested what some called a “dictatorship”.

Hundreds of thousands of people left the Bangladesh capital today in every available car, train and bus after authorities lifted a coronavirus lockdown despite soaring infections and deaths.

The government has allowed an eight-day respite after two weeks of lockdown which has seen troops patrolling the streets to keep people in their homes. With the nation about to celebrate the Eid al-Adha Muslim festival, thousands of buses returned to highways, ferries left the capital for coastal ports and trains started rolling, AFP reports.

Authorities said they eased restrictions to help the economy. More than 10 million cows and goats - worth billions of dollars - are slaughtered for Eid. Bus drivers and boat operators said they were happy to be making money again. “We have been the victims of this virus for 15 months. The impact it has on our families is unbearable,” said bus driver Abdul Kader.

“At least 300 buses have left Gabtoli bus terminal for northern Bangladesh districts since this morning. People are leaving the city en masse,” Rakib Hasan Johny, a manager of the Hanif bus service, told AFP.

It comes as Bangladesh is to start giving coronavirus vaccinations to a relatively small proportion of the 850,000 Rohingya refugees who fled across the border from Myanmar, officials said.

With infections rising across the country, refugee commissioner Shah Rezwan Hayat said about 48,000 Rohingya aged over 55 would start receiving jabs from next month with help from the World Health Organization.

There has also been an alarming virus spike in the Rohingya camps on the Myanmar border. Most of the refugees fled across the frontier in 2017 to escape a Myanmar military clampdown that the UN has said could be genocide.

At least five camps are in lockdown with the movement of aid workers and other visitors severely restricted. More than 2,100 Rohingyas have tested positive for the virus and at least 24 have died from Covid-19.

Malaysia’s health ministry has said the country will stop administering the Covid-19 vaccine produced by China’s Sinovac once its supplies end, as it has a sufficient number of other vaccines for its programme.

Malaysia’s inoculation drive will be largely anchored by the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine moving forward, health minister Adham Baba said, Reuters reports.

The Southeast Asian country has secured about 45 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, enough to cover 70% of the population, compared to 16 million doses of Sinovac’s shot, the officials said.

“About half of the 16 million have already been distributed, so the rest will be used to cover second doses,” Adham said. “For those who have yet to be vaccinated, they will receive the Pfizer vaccine.”

The government had previously said it had secured 12 million Sinovac doses, as part of a deal which would see state-linked firm Pharmaniaga carrying out a fill-and-finish process on the vaccine for local distribution.

The announcement to stop using Sinovac’s inactivated virus vaccine comes amid increasing concern over its efficacy against new and more contagious variants of the coronavirus.

Neighbouring Thailand this week said it would use the AstraZeneca vaccine as a second dose for those who received the Sinovac shot, while Indonesia is considering a booster shot for those who received the two-dose Sinovac course.

The majority of medical workers, teachers and social workers in Moscow have been vaccinated against Covid a month after authorities in the Russian capital mandated the shots for many of those employed in health care, education, retail, public transport and hospitality and services sector.

Deputy mayor Anastasia Rakova said nearly 70% of medical workers, 66% of those working in Moscow education facilities and 76% of social workers have been vaccinated. Authorities had set a deadline for today for eligible companies and institutions to ensure that 60% of their staff receive at least one vaccine shot.

But Russia’s vaccination rates have lagged compared to other nations. As of Tuesday, 28.6 million Russians – or just 19.5% of the 146 million population – had received at least one shot of a vaccine.

In light of rising cases and low vaccine uptake, authorities in nearly 30 Russian regions have made vaccinations mandatory for certain groups of people, like those employed in health care, education, retail, public transport, government offices and services sector.

Businesses and institutions were ordered to ensure that 60% of staff get at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine by 15 July and are fully vaccinated by 15 August, otherwise employers would have to suspend unvaccinated workers and face steep fines.

But experts have said the notion of in effect making vaccines compulsory has led to anger and to lowered uptake among those who were already hesitant in a small survey in Israel, which is backed up in other international studies.

“One of the main factors in being against the vaccine is the sense that it’s not being done for our health but it’s being done to us, and to control us,” said Prof Stephen Reicher, a member of the UK Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (Spi-B) said earlier this year.

“And therefore you have lower uptake in communities who are more suspicious and have a more troubled relationship with the state. The problem is that by making things compulsory, you feed into that fear, you increase that sense of this is being done to us ... And what’s more it leads to other problems like social division and social apartheid.”

Updated

Barcelona area facing curfew return after just two and a half months

Barcelona and the surrounding north-east corner of Spain is to impose a curfew from 1am to 6am again amid rising Covid cases.

Regional authorities were today waiting for a judge to give the legal go-ahead for their request to restore a nightly curfew, their latest effort to ratchet up restrictions and discourage gatherings, AP reports.

The curfew order would affect those towns with a population over 5,000 which surpass the rate of 400 infections per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 days.

Cases in Catalonia are double the Spanish average and it is among the hardest-hit areas in Europe with more than 1,000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 days. Only Cyprus is worse off in Europe, according to the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Scenes of revelry became common in many of Spain’s cities once the government lifted a six-month night-time curfew in early May. The government had hoped to give some relief to businesses and send the message abroad that Spain was open again for its all-important summer tourist season, AP reports.

“It all started with the end of school, which had served as a safe place where sanitary measures worked well. And then we saw a series of trips of students to celebrate the end of the school year and other festivities, and that was the start,” said Catalan health official Carmen Cabezas. “That, combined with the arrival of the Delta variant made for a perfect storm.”

Authorities in Catalonia are rolling out a series of measures to combat the new outbreak. Mobile vaccination units are targeting areas with lower vaccination rates.

The government will start offering free antigen tests to parents of children 10-16 years old who are participating in summer camps. And the upscale beach town of Sitges is trying out airborne drones to monitor the occupancy of its beaches.

Updated

French restaurant owners and workers are concerned that new mandatory Covid passes will turn them into virus police instead of purveyors of culinary pleasures.

The Associated Press reports that all diners in France from next month must show a pass proving they are fully vaccinated, or recently tested negative or recovered from the virus. For restaurants seen as the lifeblood of France – the new rule presents yet another headache after a punishing pandemic.

For Gauthier Max, owner of Mama Kin, restaurants and bars are no longer places of leisure but have become spaces of constraints and restrictions. “We’ve effectively become policemen,” he said.

Manager of the Parisian restaurant Les Bancs Publics, Louis le Mahieu, said: “Our job used to be to make sure that our guests had a great time while they were with us. Now, we spend our time reprimanding them. We weren’t trained for this.” He added that even police officers he asks on the street don’t always know the latest regulations.

“We’ll likely need one employee to be allocated to it full-time, and a security guard to manage disgruntled people whom we’ll have to turn away,” he said. “We’ll be stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

Like other restaurants in the bustling area, Le Bancs Publics is already struggling to respect France’s oft-changing virus rules. It’s one of 1,000 venues shut down for not respecting limits on visitors since French restaurants reopened in May for the first time in nearly seven months.

The AP reports that a draft law preparing the Covid pass requirement for restaurants, shopping malls, hospitals, trains and planes foresees fines of €45,000 euros for violations – which could be fatal to small businesses that are already struggling economically after pandemic losses.

Unions have pushed back at the new pass requirement, as did protesters at demonstrations in Paris and other cities around France yesterday. Tourists are also confused about how they can get the Covid passes before they come into effect next month; the government promises answers soon.

Thousands protested on Wednesday against new restrictions announced by President Macron on Monday.
Thousands protested on Wednesday against new restrictions announced by President Macron on Monday. Photograph: Kiran Ridley/Getty Images
A woman holds a placard reading in French “Never in my body the liquid of dictature shall enter”.
A woman holds a placard reading in French “Never in my body the liquid of dictature shall enter”. Photograph: Geoffroy van der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has claimed there was “zero” risk of athletes infecting Japanese residents with Covid-19, as cases hit a six-month high in the host city.

“Risk for the other residents of Olympic village and risk for the Japanese people is zero,” Bach said, adding that Olympics athletes and delegations have undergone more than 8,000 coronavirus tests, resulting in three positive cases, Reuters reports.

Those cases have been placed in isolation and their close contacts are also under quarantine protocols, Bach said at the beginning of talks with The Tokyo governor, Yuriko Koike, and the Tokyo 2020 president, Seiko Hashimoto.

Just over a week before the 23 July opening ceremony, Tokyo reported 1,308 new Covid-19 infections today, its highest daily tally since late January. Organisers have imposed Olympics “bubbles” to prevent further transmissions.
A number of infections have emerged among several visiting athletes and people involved with the Games. An Olympic athlete under a 14-day quarantine period has tested positive in Tokyo, the organising committees’ website reported, without disclosing any details about the athlete, Reuters reported.

Eight members of the Kenyan women’s rugby team, who were set to hold a training camp in Kurume in southwestern Japan, were classified as close contacts of a passenger on their flight to Tokyo who tested positive for coronavirus, a city official said.

The eight athletes had all tested negative on arrival at the airport, the official added, and will be staying at an accommodation facility in Tokyo until the Games.

Updated

Rwanda to lockdown capital in attempt to stem rising cases

Rwanda is to put the capital Kigali and eight other districts across the country under lockdown from Saturday to rein in rising coronavirus cases and deaths, officials said.

The restrictions will last until 26 July, the office of prime minister Edouard Ngirente said in a statement. “Citizens are urged to significantly reduce social interactions and limit movements only to essential services,” it said.

Both public and private offices, except for those providing key services, were ordered closed, AFP reports. Other measures due to come into force include a ban on outdoor sport and recreational activities, while schools will be closed and the number of people attending funerals is capped at 15.

International arrivals and tourism will however continue. A dusk to dawn curfew introduced in June across the country remains in force.

In recent weeks, cases have skyrocketed as the East African nation battles more virulent variants of the virus. Hospitals have been under severe pressure, with a critical shortage of beds and medicines.

The country of 13 million people has registered nearly 51,000 cases of Covid-19 of which 607 have been fatal.

Chinese cities threaten restrictive measures for unvaccinated, including hospital bans

Millions of Chinese people face bans from public spaces including schools, hospitals and shopping malls unless they get a Covid-19 vaccine, under new edicts covering nearly two dozen cities and counties.

AFP reports that the severe new rules would be imposed on numerous second-tier cities in a possible marker of what is to come for the whole country, as it attempts to inoculate 64% of its 1.4 billion population by the end of this year.

In Chuxiong city in the southern province of Yunnan – home to about 510,000 people – all residents above the age of 18 need to get at least one dose of the vaccine by 23 July, according to a new government notice.

Those who fail to meet the deadline “will not be allowed to enter public facilities including hospitals, nursing homes, kindergartens and schools, libraries, museums, and prisons or take public transport”, the notice said. A month later, two shots will be required to enter public buildings.

Similar notices were issued by authorities in at least a dozen cities and counties across the country, including six in eastern Jiangxi province, one in Sichuan, one in Gaungxi and three in Fujian province.

Tianhe county in central Henan province threatened to stop paying wages to and dismiss any state employee not inoculated by 20 July, according to an official notice issued Monday.

At least a dozen places have stationed volunteers at government buildings, train stations and other busy public spaces to note down the names and contact information of those who are not vaccinated, according to AFP.

The move has led to an online backlash. “At first you [the government] said vaccination was voluntary, now you are forcing us!” wrote one angry user of China’s Twitter-like Weibo.

“I just got my second dose, but this new policy sounds like a royal decree: disappointed and disgusting!” complained another.

Yesterday, China had administered more than 1.4 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines, the National Health Commission said, without specifying the number of people vaccinated.

Hello and greetings to everyone reading, wherever you are the in the world. Mattha Busby here to take you through the next few hours of global Covid developments. Thanks to my colleague Martin Belam 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.

Each day’s list of Sydney exposure sites reveals another weakness in New South Wales’ lockdown strategy and the failure to provide clear guidance about what is really expected of citizens.

Analysing the situation, my colleague Anne Davies writes that the failure has become particularly acute now the hotspot has moved to south-west Sydney, where English is a second language, many of the workers are in face-to-face jobs or trades and often living from paycheque to paycheque.

The stubbornly high numbers of people out in the community while infectious are not due to lawlessness in south-west Sydney. It’s the mixed messages from the top, driven in part from ideology that NSW wants to be seen as the state that can achieve the high-wire act of putting the economy first, while keeping the virus at bay.

Summary

  • Russia on Thursday reported 791 coronavirus-related deaths, the most in a single day since the pandemic began and the third day in a row it has set that record. The coronavirus task force confirmed 25,293 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours.
  • Indonesia is bracing for its Covid outbreak to get worse after a near vertical climb in cases, a senior minister said on Thursday, warning that infections had spread faster than anticipated due to the more virulent Delta variant. Wednesday’s tally of more than 54,000 cases was the latest of many peaks in the past month, and up more than tenfold on the number of infections at the start of June.
  • The largest ever international study of people with long Covid has identified more than 200 symptoms and prompted researchers to call for a national screening programme.
  • Singapore is racing to find people linked to a growing cluster of Covid infections that were traced to KTV lounges in a fresh outbreak that has prompted a wider crackdown on nightspots breaking social distancing rules.
  • In the UK, plans to tweak the NHS Covid app to make its alerts less sensitive and avoid mass disruption to people’s lives will not be introduced for several weeks, a cabinet minister has admitted. Some MPs have complained that the ping is too sensitive and repeatedly forcing into isolation healthy and low-risk workers who they think should otherwise be able to escape quarantine by getting tested every day, instead.
  • First minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford has said the country’s rules are “just simpler, clearer” than those in neighbouring England.
  • Police in England will still wear face masks after rules are relaxed on Monday, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has said.
  • Spain’s Balearic islands have been removed from England’s green list of restriction-free travel destinations abroad, a decision that will come into effect at 4am BST on Monday 19 July. Are you affected? Our community team would love to be in touch with you about it.
  • Almost 2m more doses of Covid vaccine will arrive in Taiwan today, consisting of direct purchases and a third donation from Japan, the government said, as the island ramps up inoculations, with domestic cases well under control.
  • International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach and Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike were set to meet this morning, as Covid cases hit a six-month high in the host city. Several visiting athletes for Tokyo 2020 have tested positive on arrival and a cluster of infections has emerged at a hotel hosting Brazilian team members.
  • In Australia, the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has announced the entire state will go into a snap five day lockdown in a bid to curb the growing Melbourne outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19.
  • The Australian government has quietly scaled down projections of how many AstraZeneca doses will be available in the coming weeks, while downplaying a huge gap between the amount being locally produced and original Covid-19 vaccine supply targets.

Andrew Sparrow has the UK live blog today, which is very focussed on politics. Mattha Busby will be along in a moment to take over from me – he’ll continue to bring you the latest international coronavirus news and the top lines from the UK. I’m off to host our Thursday quiz. See you tomorrow.

Updated

Tweaks to make NHS Covid app less sensitive being delayed for weeks

Plans to tweak the NHS Covid app to make its alerts less sensitive and avoid mass disruption to people’s lives will not be introduced for several weeks, a cabinet minister has admitted.

Senior government figures are scrambling to avoid the public deleting en-masse the app that notifies users if they have been identified as a “close contact” of a positive coronavirus case.

Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, said the government had “accepted” the technology needed tweaking.

“It is important we have the app, that we take it seriously and that when we do get those messages, we act accordingly,” he told LBC radio on Thursday. “But we’re going to give further thought to how it is a proportionate response.

“The government’s going to be setting out its plans in the coming weeks, so I’m not going to pre-empt those.”

The alert is based on an algorithm that uses Bluetooth to track those who have been within 2 metres of someone with the disease for 15 minutes or more, but also check-in data at venues including bars and restaurants.

Some MPs have complained that the ping is too sensitive and repeatedly forcing into isolation healthy and low-risk workers who they think should otherwise be able to escape quarantine by getting tested every day, instead.

Read more of Aubrey Allegretti’s report here: Tweaks to make NHS Covid app less sensitive being delayed for weeks

From our community team:

Spain’s Balearic islands have been removed from England’s green list of restriction-free travel destinations abroad, a decision that will come into effect at 4am BST on Monday 19 July.

The re-classification to ‘amber’ means people who are returning to England from the Balearic islands including Majorca, Menorca and Ibizawill have to quarantine at home for 10 days and take two coronavirus tests at home – although fully vaccinated travellers won’t have to self-isolate if testing negative from 19 July.

We’d like to hear from people whose travel or work plans have been affected by this announcement, and from people who may feel discouraged to travel abroad by this news. We’re also interested in hearing from people living in the Balearics and how this will affect them.

You can find out how to get in touch here…

Police in England will still wear face masks after rules are relaxed on Monday, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) has said.

PA report that the body has written to all forces advising that existing infection control measures should continue, issuing guidance to officers and staff to still use personal protective equipment (PPE). NPCC chairman Martin Hewitt said:

As employers, chief constables have a responsibility to do everything they can to keep their staff and officers safe.

The nature of policing means officers are often in close contact with members of the public, are dealing with vulnerable people and going into different homes. That’s why we will continue for now with our current infection control measures, like the use of face masks.

We also want to ensure our officers and staff are as protected as possible so they can be there for the public and we minimise the risk of large numbers either being off sick or self-isolating.

Sales at Asos climbed by almost a fifth in the last quarter but the online fast-fashion retailer has warned that there is still significant short-term uncertainty ahead due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The company reported revenues of almost £1.3bn for the four months to 30 June, up from £1.1bn in the same period last year. However, sales softened in the last weeks of June amid uncertainty over Covid-19 and unseasonal weather.

The fashion company, popular with twentysomethings, said it expected trading volatility to continue in the near term as the impact of Covid-19 on its supply chains and freight costs continues to dampen profits. Shares fell 14% on Thursday morning after the trading update was published.

Read more of Jillian Ambrose’s report here: Asos sales rise but CEO warns of more short-term Covid volatility

Aradhana Aravindan and Chen Lin report for Reuters that Singapore is racing on Thursday to find people linked to a growing cluster of Covid infections that were traced to KTV lounges in a fresh outbreak that has prompted a wider crackdown on nightspots breaking social distancing rules.

The 56 new local cases reported on Wednesday was the highest daily tally in 10 months, and three-quarters of them were traced to KTV clubs. Singapore reported another 42 cases on Thursday, with the bulk again linked to the cluster.

Bars and nightclubs have been shut in Singapore for over a year, but some KTV lounges are allowed to operate as just food and beverage outlets, without providing hostess services or dice games.

The bars at the centre of the latest Covid scare, however, were allegedly operating illegally and there was a risk they could become a “very big cluster,” health minister Ong Ye Kung told a media briefing.

KTV lounges have a reputation in Singapore as venues for vice activities. Three KTV operators are under police investigation for flouting safe management measures and for providing hostess services.

“It reflects that the darker areas in the society will always show up the most number of cases of Covid,” said infectious diseases expert Leong Hoe Nam. The bars’ shady reputation made it likely that some patrons could be reluctant to admit frequenting them.

It was unclear what action would be taken against the bars customers if they were found to have broken Singapore’s rules on social gatherings.
Previously locals have been fined or jailed, while foreigners have been stripped of their employment visas for breaching quarantine of breaking strict rules on public gatherings.

Long Covid has more than 200 symptoms, study finds

Linda Geddes, our science correspondent, reports:

The largest ever international study of people with long Covid has identified more than 200 symptoms and prompted researchers to call for a national screening programme.

The study found the myriad symptoms of long Covid – from brain fog and hallucinations to tremors and tinnitus – spanned 10 of the body’s organ systems, and a third of the symptoms continued to affect patients for at least six months.

A national screening programme would help produce a better understanding of how many people are affected and the kind of support they would need, the researchers said.

The researchers also called for the clinical guidelines for assessing patients with suspected long Covid to be widened beyond cardiovascular and lung-function tests.

Athena Akrami, a neuroscientist at University College London, and senior author of the study, said: “A lot of post-Covid clinics in the UK have focused on respiratory rehabilitation. It’s true that a lot of people have shortness of breath, but they also have a lot of other problems and types of symptoms that the clinics need to provide a more holistic approach to.”

She said that she was still experiencing symptoms 16 months after becoming infected with coronavirus, adding: “There are likely to be tens of thousands of long Covid patients suffering in silence, unsure that their symptoms are connected to Covid-19.”

Read more here: Long Covid has more than 200 symptoms, study finds

Changshin Vietnam, a South Korean-owned shoemaker that makes shoes for Nike, has suspended production at three of its factories in Dong Nai province due to a coronavirus outbreak, the government said on Thursday.

Reuters report that the factories, which employ nearly 42,000 workers, will remain shut until 20 July.

Andrew Sparrow has launched our UK live blog for the day. He is liable to be very much focussed on the big speech expected from UK prime minister Boris Johnson later on and the politics of that, so I’ll be continuing to carry major UK Covid lines here. But if it is politics you are after, then Andrew is your man…

Russia reports record daily Covid deaths for third day running

Russia on Thursday reported 791 coronavirus-related deaths, the most in a single day since the pandemic began and the third day in a row it has set that record.

Reuters report the coronavirus task force confirmed 25,293 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours.

Just a little further snippet on Robert Jenrick’s media appearances this morning. On LBC he said the government is “concerned” about the number of people off work as a result of being “pinged” by the NHS Covid app.

PA media report he said: “It is important that we have the app, that we take it seriously, that when we do get those messages we act accordingly. But we are going to give further thought to how we can ensure it is a proportionate response.

“We have indicated that for those who have been double vaccinated there are opportunities to take a more proportionate approach.

“We are concerned about absences as a result of being pinged, for example. That is one of the reasons why we do need to move to a more proportionate approach.”

Nadra Ahmed, chairwoman of the National Care Association, said care homes in the UK are struggling with staffing issues as restrictions ease.

“It’s the management of all of this that’s going to be a challenge because recruitment of staff is an enormous challenge for us at the moment, and we’ve also got the pings going off for isolation, so I’ve got real staffing issues about how we manage this,” PA report she told Sky News.

She said the Government also needs to clarify issues around visitors wearing masks to care homes and whether they can refuse.

“On the one hand we’ve been told mask-wearing will become optional, for people to make up their own minds,” she said.

“So, if we’ve got people who are coming in to take their loved ones out, we need to make sure that we understand what the rules will be for them.

“If they’re taking them to a local pub or local cafe, how do we work with that and how do we actually monitor that, because all the responsibility in any guidance that has come through rests completely on the provider.”

She added that it is paramount that residents and staff can be kept safe.

“We are going to have to manage the number of people coming into a care home, we’re not going to be able to enable three or four different lots of visitors in because we’ve still got to do all that clinical cleaning... We’ve got to do the testing, we’ve got to sort all of that out, and we haven’t got the staff.”

Ahmed added that the sector expects to lose staff once mandatory vaccination comes in.

Taiwan has reported just 14 new cases today, half of which were already in quarantine, as it receives another shipment of donated vaccines from Japan.

There were six new deaths reported, bringing Taiwan’s Covid-19 tallies to 15,346 cases and 759 deaths. About 13,900 cases and 747 of the deaths have all been recorded since mid-May, when Taiwan lost control of an outbreak and cases spread across the island in the worst epidemic of Covid-19 since the pandemic began.

A major complication has been the low rate of vaccination across Taiwan, but the island is rapidly moving out of its desperate shortageswith millions of donations coming in from Japan, the US, and Lithuania.

The gratitude has been enshrined on these stickers given to people post-vaccination at a Taipei city hospital.

A further 970,000 AstraZeneca vaccines arrived from Japan today, as did 560,000 doses of AstraZeneca bought from Thailand, and 350,000 Moderna doses bought from Luxembourg.Japan’s donations now total more than 3.3 million doses since 4 June.

Japanese authorities have repeatedly cited previous assistance Taiwan gave the country after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.

Also on Thursday, Taiwan’s ministry of foreign affairs said 200 donated oxygen concentrators had arrived in Indonesia, where cases have surged to more than 20,000 a day.

Victoria to go into snap five day lockdown

In Australia, the Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has announced the entire state will go into a snap five day lockdown in a bid to curb the growing Melbourne outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19. It comes after two further people who attended the MCG tested positive to coronavirus. The lockdown will start at midnight tonight.

Just a note on what we can expect coming up in the UK today. At 11am we’ll get the weekly test and trace figures. At 2pm we get the Public Health England weekly Covid-19 surveillance report, and we’ll also get vaccination figures from the NHS at the same time. And this evening chief medical officer Chris Witty is appearing at an event for London’s Science museum entitled: Covid-19 and the hunt for the vaccine: a frontline account. You can watch that free online if you’d like.

Drakeford: rules in Wales 'just simpler, clearer' so that everyone is 'keeping one another safe'

First minister of Wales Mark Drakeford has been on ITV’s Good Morning Britain as well in the UK. Here’s probably his clearest summing up of why Wales has taken a different path to England over face mask rules:

The reason why we put the force of law behind our decisions is so that it is clear for everybody. There isn’t an ambiguity about it. It isn’t just strong advice, it’s what everybody has to do. And that is a way in which we can all make a contribution to keeping one another safe. A contribution for those clinically vulnerable people who, if they thought that shops were not a safe place to go, would feel excluded from them.

So we are trying to have a regime here in Wales in which everybody makes their small contribution, because those contributions add up to something much bigger. It’s why we decided that it was just simpler, clearer, for people to know it’s not simply good advice. It’s what every one of us will be required to do.

Australian government scales back supply projections for AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine

The Australian government has quietly scaled down projections of how many AstraZeneca doses will be available in the coming weeks, while downplaying a huge gap between the amount being locally produced and original Covid-19 vaccine supply targets.

Last month, under significant pressure over the vaccine rollout, the federal government released a planning document estimating how many doses would be distributed over the rest of 2021.

The document, titled Covid Vaccination Allocations Horizons, estimated the commonwealth would distribute between 2.2m and 2.6m AstraZeneca doses a week to the states, general practitioners and the aged care and disability sector in July and August.

Overnight the government released a new document that cut that estimate to between 2m and 2.3m doses available each week for August and September, a potential reduction of up to 10.7%.

Both forecasts are more than double the actual level of production of AstraZeneca vaccine planned by Australia’s domestic vaccine manufacturer, CSL.

CSL told the Guardian it was only expecting to manufacture 1m doses a week from the second half of July onwards. CSL production in the past month has also been well down on its usual levels.

Read more of Nick Evershed and Christopher Knaus’ report here: Australian government scales back supply projections for AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine

The number of UK workers on company payrolls has jumped, as the relaxation of lockdown rules saw firms take on more staff.

UK company payrolls rose by 356,000 in June from May, according to the latest estimate from the Office for National Statistics - the first full month after Covid-19 restrictions on hospitality firms, leisure venues and international travel were eased.

You can follow reaction to that with Graeme Wearden on our business live blog…

Here’s a bit more from Wales’ first minister on BBC Breakfast this morning. PA have these quotes from Mark Drakeford. He said the UK Government’s changes to rules on international quarantine ran the risk of “re-importation” of coronavirus back into the country and that the previous regime was “more sensible and proportionate”:

I do regret the fact that the prime minister has decided that people returning from amber list countries do not require to self-isolate I think it runs the risk of re-importation of the virus into the United Kingdom, I think it runs the risk of new variants cropping up elsewhere in the world coming into the UK and into Wales. I think the previous regime was a more sensible and proportionate one.

He said had not been able to express his concerns directly.

I have not had that conversation directly with the Prime Minister. It is some time since I had such a conversation. However, we have other opportunities every week to speak to senior ministers in the UK Government and certainly we have made the response there.

I am sure they have weighed things up carefully themselves - they have come to a different conclusion, a conclusion that we don’t share, but we’ve had the opportunity to make our views known.

Asked when he had last spoken to the prime minister, Drakeford replied: “I’ve had one telephone conversation with the Prime Minister since our election on 6 May and we’ve had one meeting where the first ministers met with the prime minister. That was a more lengthy meeting, a proper meeting, so those have been the contacts that I’ve had.”

A quick note from Reuters that India reported on Thursday 41,806 new coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, with deaths rising by 581.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach and Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike were set to meet this morning, as Covid cases hit a six-month high in the host city.

The Games have little public support in Japan amid fears about the spread of the virus. Several visiting athletes have tested positive on arrival and a cluster of infections has emerged at a hotel hosting Brazilian team members.

Reuters have offered this timeline of the Covid incidents associated with the Olympics so far:

  • 20 June A coach with Uganda’s squad tests positive on arrival at Narita airport and is quarantined at a government-designated facility. The rest of the team heads by bus for their host city, Izumisano near Osaka in western Japan.
  • 23 June A Ugandan athlete tests positive, Izumisano officials said.
  • 4 July A member of Serbia’s Olympic rowing team tests positive on arrival. The other four team members are isolated as close contacts.
  • 9 July One Lithuanian and one Israeli athlete test positive, according to reports. Later reports say the Lithuanian’s results were unclear and subsequently tested negative.
  • 14 July A masseur for the Russian women’s rugby sevens team tests positive, forcing the team into isolation for two days, the RIA news agency reports. Officials in Munakata, southwestern Japan, confirmed that one staff member was hospitalised and said none of the team members could be considered close contacts.
  • 15 July Eight athletes from the Kenya women’s rugby team were classified as close contacts after a positive coronavirus case was found on their flight to Tokyo, said an official with the southwestern city of Kurume, where they were set to hold a training camp.

Incidentally, at the same time, first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has been on BBC Breakfast, and he’s been putting clear blue water between the approaches of England and Wales to relaxing the rules. He said unequivocally that face masks would be required. “Here in Wales the rules will be clear” he said.

As is usual in the UK, a government minister has been up in the early slot on Sky News and they have pretty much said exactly what we can expect them to say in every media appearance this morning. Today it is housing minister Robert Jenrick, and he was pressed on the potential mess of patchwork Covid rules in England from Monday. He said:

We’re in an immeasurably better position thanks to the vaccine. We’re still very much living with the virus and we’re going to be for a long time, so we do need to exercise caution. The vaccine programme has enabled us to move into a different phase, where it’s not going to be a matter of law that these restrictions and inhibitions remain in place, but it will be a matter of personal responsibility. And so we’re asking every member of the public to be cautious, to come to sensible judgments about, for example the wear of masks in close contact in indoor spaces, and for businesses, as well, to consider whether they want to and need to apply those restrictions.

He then went on to say:

You can already see that organisations such as TfL which manages the tube in London, have come to, in my opinion a perfectly sensible judgement that in the close confines of the tube, you should be using a mask, and there’s also some supermarkets out there coming to that conclusion as well.

Asked about Hugh Osmond, founder of the restaurant group Various Eateries saying that Monday in England won’t be the much-touted “Freedom day” but instead “Chaos day”, Jenrick insisted that actually businesses wanted this. He said:

This is the sort of discretion that they want, reflecting the fact that businesses are often in very different situations, and a one-size-fits-all approach, backed by the force of the law, isn’t sensible, when we’re moving into a period now where in all likelihood we’re going to be living with the virus for a long time. We need to take a different approach. That’s what we’re doing, and personally I think that there’s every reason to believe that members of the public, and businesses, will come to sensible conclusions.

Nepal’s maternal health services were fragile before the pandemic. The country has no midwives so women give birth with the help of auxiliary nurses like Urmila, or skilled birth attendants.

But since the start of the pandemic, maternal deaths have soared. According to the department of health, 258 women died as a result of pregnancy or childbirth between March 2020 and June 2021. Thirty-three women had Covid-19. In the year before March 2020, the country recorded 51 maternal deaths.

Neonatal deaths have also increased, from 13 deaths per 1,000 live births before lockdown to 40 deaths per 1,000 live births during the first lockdown.

Health workers fear that the second wave of infections could see maternal death rates reach levels not seen in the country this century.

“Normally, around 45 women come for the antenatal checkups in our health post but since April more than 90% of pregnant women are not in contact,” said Acharya. “We tried to reach out to them via phone but we barely spoke to 10 women.”

Read more of Rojita Adhikari report from Kathmandu here: Nepal sees huge rise in maternal deaths as Covid keeps women at home

Almost 2m more doses of Covid vaccine will arrive in Taiwan today, consisting of direct purchases and a third donation from Japan, the government said, as the island ramps up inoculations, with domestic cases well under control.

Reuters note that Taiwan had initially struggled with supply shortages, like many other parts of the world, to secure enough vaccines, and also blamed China for hindering its efforts, an assertion Beijing has denied.

Cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng said the newly arrivals would be 550,000 doses from AstraZeneca and 350,000 from Moderna, both part of previously announced direct government purchases.

Almost 1m AstraZeneca doses would also be arriving as a donation from Japan, he added, its third such gift in two months.

Good morning, it is Martin Belam here in London. It is housing minister Robert Jenrick on the UK media round for the government this morning. All the focus of the appearances seem to be on a speech from the UK prime minister due later today about economic policy, so I’ll pick out any bits of Covid interest that crop up in due course.

Singapore sees highest cases in 10 months

Singapore reported its highest number of local coronavirus cases in 10 months on Wednesday, after the discovery of a cluster among hostesses and customers of KTV karaoke lounges, Reuters reports.

Of the 56 new community infections, 42 were linked to the KTV outbreak, the health ministry said.

The ministry has been investigating infections among what it said were Vietnamese hostesses who frequented KTV lounges or clubs and has offered free testing to anyone potentially exposed.

People queue up for Covid tests in Singapore.
People queue up for Covid tests in Singapore. Photograph: Edgar Su/Reuters

The first known case was a Vietnamese woman who sought medical help on Sunday, local media reported.

Singapore has yet to reopen KTV lounges and clubs and authorities said the places where the virus spread were operating as food and beverage outlets.

Singapore police said in a statement they had arrested 20 women late on Wednesday, among them South Koreans, Malaysians, Thai and Vietnamese, for alleged vice activities at KTV lounges

Police also planned to step up checks and enforcement on such activities, the statement said.

Indonesia ‘in worst case scenario’ as daily cases climb past 50,000

Indonesia is bracing for its Covid outbreak to get worse after a near vertical climb in cases, a senior minister said on Thursday, warning that infections had spread faster than anticipated due to the more virulent Delta variant, Reuters reports.

The world’s fourth most populous country is struggling to slow virus transmission even after imposing its toughest mobility curbs so far.

Wednesday’s tally of more than 54,000 cases was the latest of many peaks in the past month, and up more than tenfold on the number of infections at the start of June.

In a streamed news conference, senior minister Luhut Pandjaitan said daily Covid cases could still climb as the Delta variant, first identified in India, has a two- to three- week incubation period.

“We’re already in our worst-case scenario,” Luhut said.

“If we’re talking about 60,000 (cases a day) or slightly more than that, we’re okay. We are hoping not for 100,000, but even if we get there, we are preparing for that,” he added.

The government has converted several buildings into isolation facilities, deployed fresh graduate doctors and nurses to treat Covid patients and imported treatment drugs and oxygen, he said.

Summary

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Sullivan.

In a streamed news conference, senior Indonesuan minister Luhut Pandjaitan said daily Covid cases could still climb as the Delta variant, first identified in India, has a two- to three- week incubation period.

“We’re already in our worst-case scenario,” Luhut said.

“If we’re talking about 60,000 [cases a day] or slightly more than that, we’re okay. We are hoping not for 100,000, but even if we get there, we are preparing for that,” he added.

More on that shortly. In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:

  • Ibiza, Mallorca and Menorca will be added to Scotland’s amber travel list, the Scottish Government said.
  • The Philippines has announced it will ban travellers coming from Indonesia to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.
  • Malta has amended its travel advice to allow in British travellers with any AstraZeneca vaccine after reports of people being turned away if their dose had been manufactured in India.
  • In Japan, seven staff tested positive for Covid at a hotel hosting Olympians in south-west Tokyo. A 31-strong Brazilian Olympic delegation, which includes judo athletes, is currently staying at the hotel.
  • South Korea on Wednesday tightened social distancing curbs across most of the country to try to combat its worst-ever outbreak of coronavirus after new cases on Tuesday soared past previous daily peaks to 1,615.
  • Russia has reported 786 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, which is again the most confirmed in a single day since the beginning of the pandemic.
  • The Netherlands has recorded a 500% rise in Covid cases, following moves to fully reopen the economy including opening nightclubs. It has been seen as a warning as to how case numbers might take off in England when restrictions are dropped next week.
  • The UK will not be added to the EU travel green list this week. EU diplomats agreed unanimously to add Ukraine, and remove Thailand and Rwanda.
  • Australia extended a lockdown in Sydney by at least 14 days, after three weeks of initial restrictions failed to stamp out the biggest outbreak of COVID-19 this year in the country’s largest city.
  • Coronavirus cases in Iran have soared above 23,000 for the first time since late April as the country battles its fifth wave of the pandemic.
  • The US donated 500,000 doses the Pfizer Covid vaccine to Costa Rica on Wednesday as part of the Biden administration’s programme of coronavirus diplomacy.
Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Stephen Colbert and son will co-write a 'Lord of the Rings' movie
Stephen Colbert, famous devotee to J
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
I Watched The Beauty Season 1 Finale, And Here's Why I Loved One Twist
It has finally sparked my attention.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Doctors Are Raising Alarms About Synthetic Vitamins in 2026
Many people reach for a multivitamin every morning thinking they perform a massive favor for their body. We often grew up believing that a daily pill served as the ultimate insurance policy against a poor diet. However, a growing number of medical professionals now sound the alarm about the supplements…
Budget and the Bees
Budget and the Bees
Stephen Colbert to co-write new Lord Of The Rings film
Colbert, known for hosting The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, partnered with filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson to write a new film for the franchise.
Evening Standard
Evening Standard
10 Years Later, The DCEU’s Strangest Moment Reveals A Fascinating Comic Book Retcon
The oddest part about 'Batman v Superman' is all about the twist that saves the day. Why do two moms have the same name?
Inverse
Inverse
Why is the US so expensive? Everything comes in a ‘premium’ version, from doctors’ appointments to movies
Want a good view of the cinema screen? You’ll need to sign up to the VIP scheme. A quick chat with your doctor? An extra $50,000 will let you jump the queue, writes Arwa Mahdawi
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play