Summary
Here’s a round-up of this evening’s Covid news:
- All businesses including nightclubs will be able to reopen in Wales from Saturday and there will be no legal limits on the number of people who can get together as the country moves to Covid alert level 0.
- The Italian government has said teachers will need proof of immunity from Covid-19 from the start of September, as travellers on public transport will also need the country’s “green pass”.
- The battered live events sector in the UK, from summer music festivals to business conferences and boat shows, has finally been promised a Covid cancellation insurance scheme.
- The US could announce its plan to give out booster vaccines within weeks, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.
- Argentina has responded to a delay in the delivery of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine by giving people second doses of Moderna and the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.
- Those already vaccinated with Sinovac’s Covid-19 jab in Chile will begin getting booster shots, Reuters reports.
- Bahrain in the Middle East, has added Georgia, Ukraine and Malawi to its coronavirus red list countries from 12 August, according to its state news agency.
- The US has now given out nearly 349m doses of Covid-19 jabs, as of Thursday morning.
That’s all for this evening. My colleagues in Australia will be picking up shortly to bring you the latest Covid news.
Updated
Teachers to need Covid passes in Italy
The Italian government has said teachers will need proof of immunity from Covid-19 from the start of September, as travellers on public transport will also need the country’s “green pass”.
Reuters reports that Mario Draghi’s cabinet widened those who require the certification to all teachers, university students and long-distance transport passengers.
Ministers had already ruled the pass was needed to eat indoors in restaurants or to use a range of services and leisure activities from 6 August. The change was in an attempt to encourage people to get vaccinated to cut down infections from the Delta variant.
The green pass is a digital or paper certificate which shows that someone has received at least one jab, has tested negative, or recently recovered from the virus.
“The choice of the government is to invest as much as possible in the green pass to avoid closures and to safeguard freedom,” health minister Roberto Speranza told reporters.
Teachers will not be able to work without the certificate and after five days of absence they will no longer be paid.
Wales will move to reduce Covid restrictions from Saturday
All businesses including nightclubs will be able to reopen in Wales from Saturday and there will be no legal limits on the number of people who can get together as the country moves to Covid alert level 0.
But face coverings will still be required for most people in many public places, including on public transport, in shops and in health and social care settings, and the first minister, Mark Drakeford, continued to urge caution.
“Moving to alert level 0 is another significant step forward,” said Drakeford. “For the first time since the pandemic started, all businesses will be able to open and all legal limits on meeting people in indoor private spaces will be removed.
Updated
The US could announce its plan to give out booster vaccines within weeks, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.
Its Food and Drug Administration agency expects to have its strategy by early September that would set out when and which already-jabbed individuals would have another round of doses.
Two people from the FDA told the WSJ that some people could need their follow-up shots as soon as the end of this month.
The World Health Organization has criticised plans for booster vaccines while developing nations are still struggling with their initial rollout. It hopes to vaccinate at least 10% of the world by the end of September.
Argentina has responded to a delay in the delivery of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine by giving people second doses of Moderna and the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab.
In the capital Buenos Aires alone, 180,000 people are beyond the three-month period between the first and second dose of Sputnik V, but the government is still waiting for a further stock of the vaccine to arrive.
According to Reuters, health minister Carla Vizzotti told a health conference that “flexibilising” the kinds of jabs being given out would bolster Argentina’s chances against the more contagious Delta variant.
She said: “We are able to begin interchanging different vaccines starting, while we investigate further, with Sputnik V with Moderna and AstraZeneca.
“As evidence published in the United Kingdom suggests, the combination of the AstraZeneca vaccine with the Moderna vaccine is another possibility to be able to flexibilise and accelerate the administration of second doses.”
Those already vaccinated with Sinovac’s Covid-19 jab in Chile will begin getting booster shots, Reuters reports.
President Sebastián Piñera announced the news on Thursday, after studies found the initial two doses lose some effectiveness after several months.
The South American country launched one of the world’s fastest mass inoculation campaigns against Covid-19 in February, and has now fully vaccinated more than 60% of the population, mainly with the Chinese firm’s jab, CoronaVac.
The roll-out will begin on 11 August, with citizens aged over 55 who got their vaccine before 31 March first in line.
“We have decided to start a reinforcement of the vaccination of those who have already received both doses of the vaccine Sinovac,” Pinera said in a televised address.
With changes to travel lists causing controversy in the UK, other countries are doing the same.
Bahrain in the Middle East, has added Georgia, Ukraine and Malawi to its coronavirus red list countries from 12 August, according to its state news agency.
Updated
The US has now given out nearly 349m doses of Covid-19 jabs, as of Thursday morning.
More than 400m doses have been distributed across the country to be injected, according to the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The agency said 193,199,353 people had received one dose, whereas 165,637,556 have had both jabs.
The count includes both two-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, as well as Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot jab.
This is Harry Taylor taking over the liveblog for the rest of this evening. If you have any comments, tips or suggestions - you can reach me by email or via Twitter where I’m @HarryTaylr.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments:
- Indonesia’s health ministry has recorded 1,747 new deaths of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, pushing the nation’s total deaths to 100,636. The south-east Asian country has been struggling to cope with the highly contagious Delta variant since it was first discovered in Indonesia in late June. According to Our World in Data, Indonesia’s total number of infections has now reached 3.53 million.
- China reported a decline in locally transmitted Covid-19 cases for the first time this week. A health official said he expected China’s latest outbreak, caused mainly by the Delta variant, to be largely under control within weeks.
- Tokyo reported another large jump in virus cases on Thursday, again shattering records, as the government expanded restrictions to eight more regions just days before the Olympics ends. Tokyo is already under a virus state of emergency but is experiencing an exponential growth in cases, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, AFP reports.
- Greece imposed a night-time curfew and banned music on two popular tourist islands on Thursday to contain the spread of Covid-19, its civil protection deputy minister said. The Mediterranean country, which is trying to rebuild a tourist sector hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, is also battling a wave of wildfires during a protracted heatwave, Reuters reports.
- UK paediatricians have expressed alarm about a “shambolic” vaccine rollout for children. Doctors say they are being “left in the dark” about plans for the programme and unable to answer questions from patients.
- France’s constitutional court has just ruled that a new law requiring the public to hold a health pass to access bars and restaurants and health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by mid-September largely complied with the republic’s founding charter. It also ruled that while employers could suspend health and frontline workers who refuse to get a Covid-19 shot or show proof of a negative test, they could not dismiss those on short term contracts.
- The British government said a further 86 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Thursday, bringing the UK total to 130,086.
- The Welsh health minister, Eluned Morgan, said the country will replicate changes to restrictions on international travel being made in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
I’m handing over to a colleague now. Thanks so much for joining me today.
Updated
The UK’s Covid vaccination programme has been an astonishing effort. To date almost 89% of adults have received their first dose and just over 73% have had their second.
And the programme is set to expand. Children over the age of 12 who are extremely vulnerable or live with someone at risk are already offered the jab, but this week the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) recommended that 16 and 17-year-olds should also be offered their first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab. Booster shots are also expected to be rolled out later this year to the most vulnerable.
But while those in the UK may be breathing a sigh of relief that they and their loved ones have some protection against Covid, global health experts have reiterated calls for richer nations to think of those in poorer parts of the world where coverage is far lower.
The World Health Organization (WHO) called on Wednesday for a moratorium on booster shots until at least the end of September to ensure at least 10% of the world is vaccinated. The WHO also said in May that richer countries should postpone giving children and teenagers Covid vaccines and focus on boosting supplies for vulnerable people in poorer nations.
Experts have stressed that it is in countries’ interest to share vaccines because reducing transmission means problematic variants are less likely to emerge and spread.
Attempts to ensure poorer countries receive Covid vaccines have been hampered, however, by export bans, supply shortages, patent rights and rich countries offering higher prices to buy up doses of the different vaccines.
Should the UK hold fire on expanding its vaccination programme in an effort to help others?
Prof Eleanor Riley, an immunologist at the University of Edinburgh, said it was a very difficult call.
She said:
The risks and benefits to individual children are finely balanced. The impact that vaccinating teenagers will have on the shape of the UK epidemic in the next few months is rather unclear and the global demand for vaccines continues to exceed the current supply. I don’t envy those having to make this decision.
Read more here:
Here’s a report from AFP about the unusual tactic Ibiza is planning to use to curb partying on the island:
Spain’s party island of Ibiza plans to hire young private detectives who can pass as tourists to help local authorities find out where illegal parties that violate virus restrictions will be held.
The Mediterranean island’s famous nightclubs, which attract famous DJs from around the world, are shut due to the pandemic, leading to a boom in private parties.
With Covid-19 infections surging on the island, the local government is looking for detectives aged 30 to 40 who “find the parties before they start” and tip off police, said the spokesman for the government of Ibiza, Armando Tur.
The illegal parties are often held in homes in the countryside to try to evade detection and can draw over 500 people, the spokesman said.
They are organised by “mafias” which sometimes charge €100 (£85) per person to enter and look for clients on social media or outside of bars, he added.
Ibiza has already received several applications from across Europe but it is only interested in hiring professional detectives, Tur said.
The Balearic Islands, which include Ibiza, have one of Spain’s highest Covid-19 infection rates, driven mainly by the more contagious Delta variant.
To try to curb the spread of the virus, the regional government of the Balearics at the end of July banned all gatherings between 1am and 6am of people who do not live together.
A student trip in June to the island of Majorca, also part of the Balearics, resulted in a major Covid-19 outbreak that infected thousands of people across Spain.
Updated
Wales will follow international travel changes made by England
The Welsh health minister, Eluned Morgan, said the country will replicate changes to restrictions on international travel being made in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
She went on:
We are extremely disappointed with the unilateral approach taken and believe there remain clear public health risks posed by reopening international travel while the virus is circulating globally.
For these reasons, we continue to caution against international travel for non-essential reasons this summer.
However, as we share an open border with England, it would not be practical or viable to introduce a separate border health policy.
Therefore, we will replicate the changes being made in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, to maintain the same traffic light system as the rest of the UK.
Updated
UK reports 86 Covid deaths and 30,215 further cases
The British government said a further 86 people had died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Thursday, bringing the UK total to 130,086.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have now been 155,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, PA news reports.
As of 9am on Thursday, there had been a further 30,215 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, the government said.
Updated
Plans by Germany’s health minister to place restrictions on Germans who have not been vaccinated against coronavirus are facing stiff opposition from his coalition partners and the opposition.
Several SPD politicians have called Jens Spahn’s proposals to exclude people from restaurants, gyms and other facilities who had failed to take up a vaccine offer “unworkable” and say they risk undermining the public health campaign to dampen the spread of the virus.
In the US, Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s desire to keep the state open amid the Delta surge has drawn criticism from local leaders to the White House.
More on that French court decision here from Reuters:
France’s Constitutional Council ruled that requiring health passes for bars and restaurants is legal but did however strike down several clauses in the legislation, saying that enforcing a compulsory 10-day quarantine on anyone testing COVID-19 positive impinged on freedoms
It also ruled that while employers could suspend health and frontline workers who refuse to get a Covid-19 shot or show proof of a negative test, they could not dismiss those on short term contracts.
The legislation is due to come into effect on 9 August. It was unveiled by President Emmanuel Macron in July as the Delta variant of the coronavirus fuelled a fourth wave of infections. Macron delivered a simple message at the time: get vaccinated.
It prompted a surge in the vaccination rate as the French faced the prospect of being denied access to bars, restaurants, cafes and cinemas without proof of either vaccination or a recent negative Covid-19 test.
But opponents of the legislation accuse Macron of trampling on freedoms and discriminating against the unvaccinated. Some 200,000 people marched through towns and cities across France in a third weekend of protests on Saturday and more are planned.
In an interview published on Wednesday, Macron told Paris Match:
A few tens of thousands of people have lost their minds to such an extent that they are capable of saying we live in a dictatorship.
It is irresponsible and selfish not to get vaccinated, the president has said, pointing to the renewed pressure on the healthcare system.
Hospitals along the Riviera, in Corsica and the southern Occitanie region have again triggered their crisis management plans that include postponing some surgeries to free up beds.
At the La Cabasse restaurant near the Mediterranean port city of Toulon, manager Laurent Bondil said he was certain the health pass would hit his earnings but that he would adhere to the new regulations.
Every day there’s a new rule. But what counts is that we’re still here.
The majority of French people approve of the health pass requirements, an Elabe survey showed.
The Delta variant caused an inflection point in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States.
Experts have answered key questions to better understand the balance between the newly understood risk of transmission of the Delta variant with the strong protection vaccines continue to provide.
France rules health pass to get into bars and restaurants is lawful
It’s Robyn Vinter here, dipping into the live blog while Nicola takes a well-earned break.
France’s constitutional court has just ruled that a new law requiring the public to hold a health pass to access bars and restaurants and health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by mid-September largely complied with the republic’s founding charter, Reuters reports.
The Constitutional Council however deemed it was unconstitutional to sack a health worker on a short-term contract who refused the mandatory vaccine and to enforce a mandatory quarantine with checks on anyone testing positive.
The Covid-19 vaccine rollout in England is estimated to have directly averted more than 66,900 hospital admissions, according to new figures from Public Health England.
Previous estimates had put the figure at more than 52,600 admissions, PA news reports.
Estimates of how many infections in England have been prevented by the vaccine (between 21.3 and 22.9 million) and also the number of deaths (between 57,500 and 62,700) are unchanged.
Updated
British holidaymakers in Mexico have told of their dismay after the country was abruptly put on the government’s red list of travel destinations.
The changes, which were announced on Wednesday night and will come into force at 4am on Sunday, mean that holidaymakers coming from Mexico and other red list countries and territories – including Georgia and the French departments of Réunion and Mayotte – will either have to cut their holidays short to beat the restrictions or pay thousands of pounds to stay in a quarantine hotel when they return to England.
Among those forced to cut their holiday short was Joe Coward, 29, who criticised the government’s handling of travel rules after finding out about the changes shortly after landing in Mexico on Thursday morning for a two-week honeymoon near Cancún.
The student from London told PA Media:
Basically we touched down to find that our two-week honeymoon, which had already been rearranged several times, was going to be a two-day visit.
We’ve arranged a flight for tomorrow and will be spending today getting ready to turn right around and go home.
We feel extremely angry at the government’s incompetent handling of international travel rules during this crisis, and incredibly sad and frustrated that the time that should’ve been spent enjoying being newlyweds has been ruined.
Read the full story here:
Updated
UK paediatricians have expressed alarm about a “shambolic” vaccine rollout for children, saying doctors were being “left in the dark” about plans for the programme and unable to answer questions from patients.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said there were still no plans in place to vaccinate vulnerable 12- 15-year-olds, even though an announcement had been made extending the jab to healthy people over 16.
Dr Camilla Kingdon, RCPCH president, said:
The rollout of the vaccine programme for adults has been incredibly impressive but, for children and young people, it has been frankly shambolic. This is the second announcement around vaccinations for children or young people in the last three weeks but we still haven’t seen detailed plans for rollout of the first.
Kingdon said parents and paediatricians had been “left completely in the dark about how and when children and young people will be invited for vaccination”. She said: “There has been no information to parents and none to young people themselves, and that creates confusion and, for some families, real worry.”
She said doctors urgently needed information to communicate to parents.
She said:
Our members are constantly being asked questions by young people or their parents for which they don’t have the answers because the systems aren’t in place and the detailed advice has not been provided.
In England, at least, the national booking system for Covid vaccinations is still not taking bookings for anyone under the age of 18, more than two weeks after the ministerial announcement.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which recommended on Wednesday that jabs be given to 16- and 17-year-olds, has suggested that vaccinations for 12- to 15-year-olds will follow once more data is gathered. The change comes just two weeks after it said it would not be recommending jabs for healthy children, but that those with significant disabilities or who were living with vulnerable adults could be vaccinated.
Read the full story here:
Updated
The Philippines will extend tighter coronavirus restrictions to include three areas, including a province adjoining the capital region, to prevent the spread of the Delta variant, the president’s office said on Thursday.
The tougher restrictions, already due to take effect in Metropolitan Manila from 6 August, will also be imposed in Laguna province, and the cities of Cagayan De Oro and Iloilo, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in a statement.
Updated
With 16 million Australians again plunged into lockdown as authorities struggle to contain Delta variant outbreaks, the national cabinet is set to examine how allowing vaccinated residents to be freed from restrictions could provide a “powerful incentive” to be immunised.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, will meet with state and territory leaders on Friday amid fresh tensions between New South Wales and the commonwealth over the state’s prolonged and expanding lockdown and as Victoria enters its sixth lockdown following fresh Covid cases.
Residents in south-east Queensland are also under tight restrictions with that state hoping the lockdown could end on Sunday.
The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said on Thursday that more vaccines were needed for the state to come out of its lockdown. She asked residents to get “urgently” vaccinated as NSW targets 6m jabs by the end of August.
The federal government is sending an extra 180,000 Pfizer doses to NSW in the next two weeks with Morrison demanding vaccines redirected from regional areas of the state to Sydney HSC students be returned. The prime minister called the approach “dangerous”.
Berejiklian said the extra doses would be sent back to the Central Coast over the next two weeks and welcomed the boost to the vaccination programme which she insists is the key to “a freer life” beyond August.
Berejikilian said on Thursday said:
I have been vocal publicly about our need and want for more vaccines.
We know the vaccines stop the spread. They protect life and keep people out of hospital. That’s why it is so critical and every jurisdiction around the world is finding Delta challenging.
We can try and eliminate it but we know the vaccine is critical to stopping the spread and allowing us to consider options moving forward.
Read more here:
Updated
Greece imposes curfew and bans music on two tourist islands
Greece imposed a night-time curfew and banned music on two popular tourist islands on Thursday to contain the spread of Covid-19, its civil protection deputy minister said.
The Mediterranean country, which is trying to rebuild a tourist sector hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, is also battling a wave of wildfires during a protracted heatwave, Reuters reports.
Restrictions will come into effect from Friday and run until 13 August after a recommendation by the committee of infectious disease experts advising the Greek government.
The areas affected are the island of Zakynthos in western Greece, where the epidemiological load worsened by 69% from a week earlier, and the city of Chania in Crete where it rose 54%.
The restrictions include a night time curfew and a complete 24-hour ban on music at all entertainment venues.
The Civil Protection agency said:
We call on the residents and visitors in these areas to fully comply with the measures to limit the spread of the virus.
Greece reported 2,856 Covid-19 infections on Wednesday and 16 related deaths, bringing the total since the first case was detected in February 2020 to 503,885 and 13,013 respectively.
Last month, Greece’s south Aegean islands were marked dark red on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control’s Covid-19 map after a rise in infections, meaning all but essential travel was discouraged.
Updated
Tokyo reported another large jump in virus cases on Thursday, again shattering records, as the government expanded restrictions to eight more regions just days before the Olympics ends.
Tokyo is already under a virus state of emergency but is experiencing an exponential growth in cases, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, AFP reports.
On Thursday, the city reported 5,042 cases, up from 3,865 a week earlier, and 1,979 the week before that. Daily case numbers have also broken records nationwide, topping 14,000 for the first time on Wednesday.
The Japanese prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, said at a virus taskforce meeting on Thursday:
Infections are spreading with a speed we have never experienced before. With the rapid increase of cases, the number of patients in serious condition, which had been contained, is growing.
Japan’s virus outbreak has been comparatively small overall, with around 15,000 deaths and no harsh lockdown measures, but only around a third of the population is fully vaccinated.
Six parts of the country are under a virus emergency, which bans restaurants and bars from selling alcohol and asks them to close by 8pm. Other parts of Japan are under so-called quasi-emergency measures, with the government expanding those restrictions to another eight areas on Thursday.
The measures also limit opening hours and alcohol sales, but experts have questioned whether any of the restrictions are sufficient.
Koji Wada, a professor at Japan’s international university of health and welfare, said:
At this point in time we really need to introduce some other kind of measures in order to tackle this situation.
The spike comes with the Olympic Games in full swing in Tokyo, taking place largely without spectators. Organisers have reported 353 cases among Games staff, officials, teams and media since 1 July. But they insist there is no evidence of infection spreading from the Games into Japan.
Updated
France’s constitutional court will rule on Thursday whether a new law requiring the public to hold a health pass to eat in restaurants and health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by mid-September complies with the republic’s founding charter.
The president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the proposed legislation in July as the Delta variant fuelled a fourth wave of infections, delivering a plain message: get vaccinated.
It prompted a surge in the vaccination rate as the French faced the prospect of being denied access to bars, restaurants, cafes and cinemas without proof of either vaccination or a recent negative Covid-19 test, Reuters reported.
Opponents of the measures accuse Macron of trampling on freedoms and discriminating against the unvaccinated. Some 200,000 people marched through towns and cities across France in a third weekend of protests on Saturday and more are planned.
Macron told Paris Match in an interview published on Wednesday said:
A few tens of thousands of people have lost their minds to such an extent that they are capable of saying we live in a dictatorship.
It was irresponsible and selfish not to get vaccinated, the president has said, pointing to the renewed pressure on the healthcare system.
Hospitals along the Riviera, in Corsica and the southern Occitanie region have again triggered their crisis-management plans that include postponing some surgeries to free up beds.
At the La Cabasse restaurant near the Mediterranean city of Toulon, manager Laurent Bondil said he was certain the health pass would hit his earnings but that he would adhere to the new regulations.
“Every day there’s a new rule,” he bemoaned. “But what counts is that we’re still here.”
The constitutional council will deliver its ruling later on Thursday. It can either approve the legislation, strike it down or approve it but with any element deemed unconstitutional removed.
The majority of French people approve of the health pass requirements, an Elabe survey showed.
Updated
China reported a decline in locally transmitted Covid-19 cases for the first time this week, and a health official said he expected China’s latest outbreak, caused mainly by the Delta variant, to be largely under control within weeks.
A total of 85 new confirmed Covid-19 cases were detected for 4 August, down from 96 a day earlier, data from the National Health Commission (NHC) showed on Thursday. Of the new cases, 62 were locally transmitted, versus 71 a day earlier, Reuters reported.
China’s vice-premier Sun Chunlan said on Wednesday the development of the various clusters remained uncertain, and authorities’ efforts bid to curb the spread of the virus should overcome “a laxity of mind”, the official Xinhua news agency reported. Some local governments have been called out by Beijing for lowering their guard, leading to the spread of the Delta variant from multiple sources.
Still, NHC official He Qinghua said the virus situation was largely controllable.
He told a news conference on Thursday:
As long as local authorities strictly implement various (virus control) measures, the outbreak can be largely controlled within two to three incubation periods.
Nationwide, it is possible that new outbreaks will occur in other areas, and various local authorities should strengthen their monitoring.
The latest NHC guidelines published in April stated that an incubation period for Covid-19 can be as long as 14 days, but is usually three to seven days.
Updated
Indonesia’s health ministry has recorded 1,747 new deaths of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, pushing the nation’s total deaths to 100,636.
The south-east Asian country has been struggling to cope with the highly contagious Delta variant since it was first discovered in Indonesia in late June. According to Our World in Data, Indonesia’s total number of infections has now reached 3.53 million.
The country recorded a huge rise in cases at the beginning of July, and more than 30,100 deaths. High fatality numbers have left much of the country frustrated with their government, blaming a slow vaccine rollout, while others point blame at conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers.
Rommy Stefanus, 39, who lives in Jakarta with his family, says:
Living and dying is part of the life cycle. But I do believe this [the deaths] can be reduced if our government is more responsive in handling this matter.
Stefanus, who works in logistics, feels that the Indonesian government was not effective at making early decisions such as sectioning off areas where outbreaks occurred could have slowed the spread of the Delta variant. Instead, he said, it created a climate of distrust between the authorities and the local population.
He said:
It’s frustrating, because again, the government is not strict about this [implementing the lockdown] either. They close some roads, put some police in place, but at certain times they just let people pass. In the end, people are trying to outsmart the authorities.
Stefanus also highlighted a concern with conspiracies surrounding the virus. He said many Indonesians do not consider it a serious health concern, and see it as a hoax.
Read the full story by Caleb Quinley here:
Summary
Before I hand over to my colleague, Nicola Slawson, here is a quick run-down of developments from the last few hours:
-
Lockdown will be reimposed in Manila from midnight to slow the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant across the Philippines capital. Authorities are expected to announce later whether adjacent provinces will also be pulled into the lockdown as health facilities are overwhelmed. There was chaos and confusion at vaccination sites across Greater Manila as thousands arrived to try to get vaccinated before the restrictions come into force for the next two weeks.
- The death rate for people in Jakarta who were not vaccinated was more than three times higher than those who were, according to new Indonesian health ministry data. The mortality rate of those who were not vaccinated was 15.5% compared with 4.1% for those who had received two shots of either the Sinovac or AstraZeneca vaccine, according to data from state hospitals and almost 68,000 patients in Jakarta from May to July.
- The United States hit a six-month high for new Covid cases with over 100,000 infections reported on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, as the Delta variant ravages areas where people did not get vaccinated. Unvaccinated people represent nearly 97% of severe cases, according to the White House Covid-19 Response Team, and southern states like Florida, Texas and Louisiana, which have some of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, are reporting the most Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations.
- The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said it was likely that the elderly and vulnerable would need a third Covid-19 vaccine shot, and that France was working on rolling these out from September onwards. This is despite the World Health Organization’s head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, calling on Wednesday for a halt on Covid-19 vaccine boosters until at least the end of September.
- Japan decided to expand its Covid-19 emergency restrictions to cover more than 70% of the population, as an unprecedented surge in cases strains the health system in the Olympics host city Tokyo and elsewhere. Newly reported daily cases in Japan exceeded 15,000 for the first time, public broadcaster NHK reported on Thursday, after the Tokyo metropolitan government reported a record-high 5,042 new infection cases in the capital.
- Australia’s second most populous state, Victoria, has gone into a seven-day lockdown – the state’s sixth lockdown since the coronavirus pandemic began. The premier, Daniel Andrews, announced the statewide lockdown in response to two new mystery cases. He said “the government’s priority is to avoid what’s going on in Sydney”, which suffered its worst day of the pandemic on Wednesday with 262 cases recorded and five deaths.
- NHS England’s new boss has urged young people to get a vaccine, warning that more than a fifth of those admitted to hospital with Covid are aged between 18 and 34. Amanda Pritchard said the proportion of patients aged 18-34 in hospital had nearly quadrupled from 5.4% at the peak of the winter wave in January to reach more than 20% last month.
- Just over 86,000 vaccine doses have been administered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – enough to vaccinate less than 0.1% of the country’s 90 million people. The country is facing shortages and logistical challenges which are hindering its vaccine rollout, but the government has also been accused of poor messaging in response to serious levels of vaccine hesitancy among its citizens as a result of misinformation, particularly around the AstraZeneca jab. Story here.
Updated
Chaos and confusion marred several Covid-19 vaccination sites in Manila on Thursday as thousands showed up, hoping to receive a shot before the Philippines capital heads back into lockdown for two weeks.
Movement restrictions will be reimposed across greater Manila, an urban sprawl of 16 cities that is home to 13 million people, from midnight on Thursday to try slow the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant.
Authorities are expected to announce later on Thursday whether adjacent provinces will also be pulled into the lockdown as health facilities are overwhelmed.
Maricel Bacay, a 59-year-old homemaker, was queueing outside a mall in Antipolo city in Rizal, one of those neighbouring provinces, at 3am to try beat anticipated crowds. “There was news that you can’t get inside the malls or supermarket if you’re not vaccinated,” Bacay told Reuters.
Photos on social media showed people jostling each other to be the first in line at vaccination centres, prompting police intervention to enforce social distancing rules.
Ofelia Gonzales, 36, a Manila food vendor, missed the cut-off for a vaccine despite queuing since Wednesday night. “If they keep extending the lockdown, who will provide meals if we can’t get out,” she said.
With around 1.6 million cases and more than 28,000 deaths, the Philippines has the second-worst coronavirus outbreak in south-east Asia after Indonesia.
Just 10.3 million people, or 9.3% of the Philippines’ 110 million population, have been fully vaccinated. The government target is to immunise up to 70 million people this year.
The president, Rodrigo Duterte, has threatened to arrest people who do not get a vaccine. Last month, he ordered village chiefs to prevent those in their communities who refuse to be vaccinated from leaving home.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said authorised people, including those buying essential goods, travelling for medical reasons and frontline workers, would be allowed unrestricted movement under the lockdown even if unvaccinated.
“Let us not make vaccination a superspreader,” Roque told a media briefing. “It should save lives, not endanger lives.”
Updated
The Covid-19 death rate for people in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta who were not vaccinated was more than three times higher than those who were, according to new health ministry data.
The mortality rate of those who were not vaccinated was 15.5% compared with 4.1% for those who had received two shots of either the Sinovac or AstraZeneca vaccine, according to data from state hospitals and almost 68,000 patients in Jakarta from May to July.
The country has been overwhelmed in recent months by a rapid rise in cases, and on Wednesday it passed a grim milestone, recording a total of more than 100,000 deaths.
Global data on vaccinated versus unvaccinated deaths is not easily available but Dr Ines Atmosukarto, a molecular biologist who works on vaccine development, said the data was further evidence of the importance of vaccination.
“This supports the proposition that two doses of vaccines reduces the chance of dying for those infected and requiring hospitalisation,” she told Reuters, adding that the data lacked detail about the age, comorbidity and period of observation of the patients.
Separately, data from the town of Banyuwangi on Java island, showed that 93% of patients with Covid who died from March to July were not vaccinated, while 6% percent had received a first dose, and 1% had been fully vaccinated.
Sinovac and AstraZeneca vaccines were also the vaccines predominately administered in that area.
Siti Nadia Tarmizi, a senior health ministry official, said the data could help combat vaccine hesitancy in Indonesia.
In Indonesia, 18% of the population have had one dose of a vaccine, while 8% are fully vaccinated, according to health ministry data. Indonesia has had 100,600 deaths.
By comparison, in India 27.7% of the population have had one dose of a vaccine and 7.8% are fully vaccinated, according to according to government data and research by Reuters. India has had 425,700 deaths.
Grappling with the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant, Indonesia has now recorded more than 3.5 million cases in total since the start of the pandemic.
But as cases have begun to drop in Jakarta and some areas on Java, with the health minister saying this week the country has reached the peak of its second wave, concerns remain that Delta could still ravage far-flung regions ill-equipped to handle a health crisis.
Irma Hidayana, a public health expert and co-founder of independent data initiative Lapor Covid-19, said that vaccine distribution issues, including infrastructure and data, as well as vaccine hesitancy, had hampered the government’s vaccine rollout.
“The ministry of health needs to have well planned vaccine distribution that ensures all vulnerable people are top priority,” she said. “The government must ensure that vaccines are evenly and equally distributed.”
Updated
The Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi has slammed the UK government’s decision to keep Pakistan on the red list as “clear and blatant discrimination”.
In a thread on Twitter, the Bolton South East MP claimed the decision to leave Pakistan on the red list – while moving India and Qatar to amber – was penalising the country “in favour of potential economic benefit”.
Despite Pakistan not having any variants of concern, it remains on the red list. India, where the Delta variant originated, is now amber.
In May, the chair of a cross-party Covid inquiry group said that a public inquiry must examine whether Boris Johnson’s decision to delay adding India to the travel “red list” of countries was influenced by his desire to start trade talks with Delhi.
Downing Street and the then health secretary, Matt Hancock, denied politics was involved in the decision to wait 17 days before putting India on the list of countries requiring mandatory hotel quarantine, after Bangladesh and Pakistan were added despite having significantly lower Covid case rates.
Despite Pakistan not having any variants of concern, it remains on the red list.
— Yasmin Qureshi MP (@YasminQureshiMP) August 4, 2021
I have questioned the Govt directly, spoken in parliament, asked parl qs, and coordinated letters, to no avail.
India, where the delta variant originated, is now amber.https://t.co/rQN9YqXuCt
In its latest travel review, the government downgraded France from the amber-plus list and expanded the number of green list countries, but also upped the cost of mandatory 11-night hotel quarantine for those arriving in England from a red list destination to £2,285.
The move, Qureshi said, “added insult to injury” for constituents unable to go to Pakistan for urgent reasons.
I have constituents unable to return to university, to see family or attend funerals. This has been the case for months.
She said she was writing to the transport secretary Grant Shapps about the matter.
I have constituents unable to return to university, to see family or attend funerals. This has been the case for months.
— Yasmin Qureshi MP (@YasminQureshiMP) August 4, 2021
Why has the price been increased? This makes it even harder and penalises those who need to get to Pakistan urgently.https://t.co/kWRlrcrIh6
Updated
The United States hit a six-month high for new Covid cases with over 100,000 infections reported on Wednesday, according to a Reuters tally, as the Delta variant ravages areas where people did not get vaccinated.
The country is reporting over 94,819 cases on a seven-day average, a five-fold increase in less than a month, Reuters data showed. The seven-day average provides the most accurate picture of how fast cases are rising since some states only report infections once or twice a week.
In the coming weeks, cases could double to 200,000 per day due to the highly contagious Delta variant, said the country’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, on Wednesday.
“If another one comes along that has an equally high capability of transmitting but also is much more severe, then we could really be in trouble,” Fauci said in an interview with McClatchy. “People who are not getting vaccinated mistakenly think it’s only about them. But it isn’t. It’s about everybody else, also.”
The Delta variant, first detected in India, accounts for 83% of all new cases reported in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccination rates vary widely from a high of 76% of Vermont residents receiving a first dose to a low of 40% in Mississippi, with polls showing Republicans are far less likely than Democrats to get vaccinated.
Unvaccinated people represent nearly 97% of severe cases, according to the White House Covid-19 Response Team.
Deaths, a lagging indicator, jumped 33% over the past week, with about 377 deaths per day on average, according to the analysis.
Southern states, which have some of the nation’s lowest vaccination rates, are reporting the most Covid-19 cases and hospitalisations. Florida, Texas and Louisiana were reporting the highest total number of new cases in the region over the last week, according to a Reuters analysis.
And hospitals in Florida and Louisiana are seeing record numbers of patients with Covid occupying beds.
The president Joe Biden on Tuesday urged Republican leaders in Florida and Texas - home to roughly a third of all new infections - to follow public health guidelines on the pandemic or “get out of the way”.
To try to halt the spread of the virus, New York City will require proof of vaccination at restaurants, gyms and other businesses. Roughly 60% of all New Yorkers have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to city data. But certain areas, largely poor communities and communities of colour, have much lower vaccination rates.
Some private companies are also mandating vaccines for employees and customers. The US Food and Drug Administration plans to give full approval for the Pfizer vaccine by early September, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, which could prompt more Americans to get the vaccine as it might reduce their fears about the safety of the shot.
Updated
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Thursday that it was likely that the elderly and vulnerable would need a third Covid-19 vaccine shot, and that France was working on rolling these out from September onwards.
“A third dose will likely be necessary, not for everyone straightaway, but in any case for the most vulnerable and the most elderly,” said Macron in a post on his Instagram account.
Macron’s government is trying to step up France’s Covid vaccination programme again, as the country faces a fourth wave of the virus and street demonstrations in protest against the government’s Covid policies.
This is at odds with the World Health Organization’s head, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who called on Wednesday for a halt on Covid-19 vaccine boosters until at least the end of September.
Updated
Japan to expand Covid curbs amid 'unprecedented' surge in infections
Japan decided on Thursday to expand its Covid-19 emergency restrictions to cover more than 70% of the population, as a surge in cases strains the medical system in the Olympics host city Tokyo and elsewhere, Reuters reports.
Infections are rising faster than ever as new cases hit record highs in Tokyo, overshadowing the Olympics and fuelling doubts over the prime minister Yoshihide Suga’s handling of the pandemic.
Suga announced the new steps as new daily cases in Tokyo were expected to top 5,000 for the first time and advisers to the capital said the figure could double in two weeks at the current rate, NHK public TV reported.
“New infections are rising at an unprecedentedly fast pace,” the economy minister, Yasutoshi Nishimura, told a panel of experts, where he proposed “quasi-emergency” steps for eight more of Japan’s 47 prefectures.
“The situation on the ground [at hospitals] is extremely severe,” Nishimura added, noting that serious cases had doubled in the past two weeks.
The panel signed off on the proposal, but Nishimura told a news conference some members had warned the situation was severe enough to require a nationwide state of emergency - a stance shared by the head of the Japan Medical Association.
Six prefectures including Tokyo are already under full states of emergency to last until 31 August. Another five are under less strict directives, meaning just over half the population is covered by some restrictions.
The latest steps, to take effect from Sunday, mean that more than 70% of the population will be under some form of restriction.
The government says the Olympics has not caused the latest surge but experts say holding the Games now has sent a mixed message to an already weary public about the need to stay home.
Games organisers on Thursday reported 31 new Games-related cases, bringing the total since 1 July to 353.
It remains to be seen whether the latest restrictions, which are mostly voluntary, will have much impact as the highly transmissible Delta variant spreads.
“I do not think that more [quasi-emergency steps] will make much difference - [it’s] simply a political statement,” said Kenji Shibuya, former director of the Institute for Population Health at King’s College London.
The latest expansion follows a sharp backlash against Suga’s plan to limit hospitalisation of patients with Covid to those who are seriously ill and those at risk of becoming so, while others are told to isolate at home.
The shift is intended to address a hospital bed crunch, but critics say it will lead to an increase in deaths since the condition of patients can worsen rapidly.
In response to calls from within and outside his ruling coalition to reverse the policy, Suga told reporters on Wednesday that the change was aimed at regions with a surge in cases, such as Tokyo, and was not nationally uniform.
On Thursday, he appeared to backpedal further, saying moderately ill patients in need of oxygen treatment would be admitted to hospital.
Criticism of Suga, his ratings already at record lows, is growing over his handling of the pandemic, dealing a fresh blow to the premier ahead of a ruling party leadership race and general election later this year.
Just under 31% of residents of Japan are fully vaccinated. With 15,221 deaths recorded as of Wednesday, the Covid mortality rate was about 1.6%, in line with the United States.
Updated
For months, Briton Jamie Pierre has been trying to get approval to travel to Singapore for his new job there. But after repeated checks online, plus multiple emails and messages, he is frustrated, confused and still without an entry permit.
Now, as Singapore says it may ease quarantine in September for vaccinated people, he hardly dares feel optimistic. “It does give me some hope,” said Pierre, 32, who works for a marketing procurement platform. But that hope is tempered with worry of more delays, he added.
Governments in the Asia-Pacific region, including Australia, China, Thailand and Hong Kong, have maintained quarantine and entry requirements. And Singapore has had especially strict border controls, quarantine and contact tracing. It has been one of the most successful countries in curbing Covid, with only 39 deaths.
But for its legions of foreign workers – one-fifth of the 5.7 million population – the restrictions have been a nightmare, with many stranded abroad despite having jobs and visas, and others afraid to leave for fear of not being allowed to return.
The government recently said it was considering quarantine-free travel for fully vaccinated people starting in September, when 80% of the population should be inoculated. It also plans to review some virus restrictions in early August, when two-thirds are on track to be inoculated.
The pandemic has forced Singapore to weigh its reputation as one of the world’s most accessible business climates against its efforts to control the virus.
“As a small economy, Singapore must and will remain open and connected to the world,” the manpower and trade ministries told Reuters. “We cannot afford nor do we have any intention to close ourselves off to the world for longer than necessary.”
Since last year, foreign work visa holders have needed special permits to enter Singapore. The city-state largely stopped accepting new applications from most countries in May after a surge in coronavirus cases globally.
Although many workers have successfully entered, others have been frustrated. A Facebook group with 18,000 members features accounts of navigating an opaque permit system.
There is no official data on how many foreign workers are stranded, but an online petition seeking entry for vaccinated passholders from India has nearly 5,000 signatories, many of whom share tales of families separated for months on end.
Yigit Ali Ural, a Singapore-based business owner, travelled to Turkey last month for a family emergency. Uncertain of getting approval to return, he gave up his rented apartment, losing thousands of dollars in deposit. “We are in limbo – whether to stay in Turkey and try to come back to Singapore, or just forget it,” said Ural, who is Turkish-American.
Pierre has been working remotely until he’s allowed to enter Singapore. He has spent months in Airbnbs and temporary accommodation in the UK with his wife and toddler. “I have to essentially work irregular hours to be able to keep communication with the region,” said Pierre, saying the situation was stressful.
Singapore’s government said approvals were based on Covid risk levels of the countries applicants were coming from, and that it prioritised more critical travellers.
Its tentative reopening moves are being closely watched – not only by anxious expatriates but also by other countries that are further behind in vaccinations. “Other countries currently pursing zero-Covid strategies, such as China, Hong Kong, Australia, and Taiwan, will be keeping a keen eye on Singapore’s progress,” said Gareth Leather at Capital Economics.
Updated
Victoria in snap lockdown amid fresh Australian outbreaks
Australia’s second most populous state, Victoria, will go into a seven-day lockdown from 8pm on Thursday – the state’s sixth lockdown since the coronavirus pandemic began, my colleague Calla Wahlquist reports.
The premier, Daniel Andrews, announced the lockdown in response to two new mystery cases, including one cluster which is linked to Melbourne’s Al-Taqwa College and has grown to four cases.
The lockdown will apply statewide and follow the same rules as the last lockdown, which ended a week ago.
Andrews said he had no alternative but to introduce the lockdown as soon as unlinked cases had been detected in the community.
There are no alternatives to lockdown. If you wait, it will spread. And once it spreads, you can never even hope to run alongside it let alone get out in front of it and bring it back down to zero or a low number of cases. This thing moves so fast.
Speaking on Thursday afternoon, the premier said Victoria would be “locked down until Christmas, locked down until we get 80% of people through the vaccination program” if outbreaks were not contained quickly.
We don’t have enough people that have been vaccinated, and therefore, this is the only option available to us. Once people are vaccinated, then we have many more options to the question about whether there are other things you could do.
Earlier on Thursday, Andrews said “the government’s priority is to avoid what’s going on in Sydney”, which suffered its worst day of the pandemic on Wednesday with 262 cases recorded and five deaths.
More on this story here:
Updated
Fifth of Covid hospital admissions are aged 18-34, warns NHS England boss
The new head of the NHS in England has urged young people to get a coronavirus vaccine, warning that more than one-fifth of those admitted to hospital with Covid are aged between 18 and 34.
The NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard warned that young people “are not immune and the best way they can protect themselves absolutely is to get that vaccine if they haven’t already”.
She said the proportion of patients aged 18-34 in hospital had nearly quadrupled from 5.4% at the peak of the winter wave in January to reach more than 20% last month, with 5,000 seriously ill in hospital.
In an interview with the BBC Pritchard added that the NHS was making it “as easy as possible to protect yourself, your family and your friends”, with pop-up clinics and walk-in sites adding to the 1,600 permanent sites already in place.
Here is my colleague Rachel Hall’s story:
Updated
Just over 86,000 vaccine doses have been administered in the Democratic Republic of Congo – enough to vaccinate fewer than 0.1% of the country’s 90 million people, Lisa Murray reports from Kinshasa.
The DRC is already facing shortages and huge logistical challenges in getting vaccines out to people in far-flung areas of a country almost the size of western Europe, and there is growing anger over the failures of rich countries to supply enough vaccines to poorer ones.
But epidemiologists warn that vaccine hesitancy of citizens has been overlooked and could take the DRC “back to square one” and further undermine the global fight against Covid.
Prof Pascal Lutumba, of the University of Kinshasa’s department of infectious diseases, said:
If people in Congo remain unvaccinated, the South African variant could meet with the Delta variant and the virus could mutate into a variant that is resistant to some vaccines.
If a Congo variant arrives in a country like the UK, which has high vaccination rates, it could put them back into the same position they were at the beginning of the pandemic. They’d have to get vaccinated again with a new vaccine.
Setting the tone for vaccine scepticism, the DRC’s president, Félix Tshisekedi, admitted last month he had not yet had the vaccine.
The country has received only AstraZeneca vaccines so far, but according to Dr Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum, the country’s head of Covid response, new vaccines are expected to arrive this month, which should include different brands – which Muyembe-Tamfum and the president have both said they will take.
Rodin Nzembuni Nduku, a doctor at a hospital in Kinshasa, said:
The president said that he doesn’t trust AstraZeneca, so that makes me doubt it … I would die of anxiety if I took this vaccine, because of how the president described it. I would be worried that I was going to die.
On 2 March, DRC received 1.7m doses from Covax, the global vaccine-sharing scheme, but delayed the rollout until April after several European countries suspended use of AstraZeneca in response to reports of side-effects involving rare blood clots. About 75% of the shots were relocated to other African countries to be used before they expired. Since then the rollout has been sluggish.
Willingness to have a Covid vaccine in the DRC was reported to be the lowest in 15 countries surveyed by the African Union between August and December last year, with 38% of people surveyed in the DRC unwilling to be vaccinated compared with just 4% in Ethiopia.
And more than 70% of healthcare workers in the country said they would not take the vaccine, according to a study published by Vaccines journal in February.
Healthcare workers who spoke to the Guardian in Kinshasa said these mistakes had been repeated with Covid as the government has failed to adequately explain the severity of the virus, allowing disinformation to spread.
“People didn’t believe it,” said a doctor at Kinshasa’s Mama Yemo hospital, Jean-Paul Nsimba.
They resisted, they doubted its existence. They thought it was a disease that killed white people.
Read the full story here:
Updated
This is from Thursday’s Guardian morning briefing, by my colleague Warren Murray.
Millions of Britons have been given the green light to travel to Europe’s holiday hotspots, avoiding quarantine on return from France and Spain where concerns have been raised about Covid variants. Ministers announced fully vaccinated holidaymakers returning from France would no longer need to quarantine, and ditched plans for a “watchlist” of amber countries such as Spain. The move is likely to partially revive the struggling tourism sector but will raise questions about whether the government is being complacent about the spread of the Beta variant.
The decision to abandon plans for a watchlist under pressure from mutinous cabinet ministers will also put UK tourists at risk of having their plans aborted without any notice, raising the spectre of a repeat of last summer’s chaotic travel corridors. Under-18s and those fully jabbed in the UK are now exempt from quarantine, as well as those who have been vaccinated in the EU and US. Covid vaccines will also be offered to all 16- and 17-year-olds without needing the consent of their parents, after government experts reversed their advice.
The full briefing of the day’s top UK stories is here.
Good morning from London. I’m Lucy Campbell, I’ll be bringing you all the latest global developments on the coronavirus pandemic for the next few hours. Please feel free to get in touch with me as I work if you have a story or tips to share! Your thoughts are always welcome.
Email: lucy.campbell@theguardian.com
Twitter: @lucy_campbell_
Updated
Summary
That’s it from me today, I’m handing over to my UK colleague Lucy Campbell.
Here’s a roundup of what’s been happening over the past 24 hours:
- In Japan, some members of a government expert panel have warned that a recent surge in Covid-19 cases was severe enough to impose a nationwide state of emergency. But economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is in charge of the pandemic response, said the panel ultimately agreed to a government proposal to expand emergency restrictions to eight more prefectures.
- In Australia, New South Wales, home to Sydney, has suffered its worst day of the pandemic so far. The state reported 262 new cases, the majority in the country’s biggest city, and five deaths.
- The US has disputed calls by the WHO to delay Covid-19 vaccine booster shots to allow distribution to poorer countries, with White House spokesperson Jen Psaki calling it a “false choice”.
- Future travellers to the US will have to be fully vaccinated a White House official has said. The new requirement is being discussed as part of a phased approach to easing restrictions for foreign visitors.
- Millions of Britons have been given the green light to travel to Europe’s holiday hotspots, avoiding quarantine on return from France and Spain where concerns have been raised about Covid variants. The announcement was part of wider changes to travel rules for people travelling in and out of the UK.
- Mental health services suffered across the whole of Europe because of pandemic restrictions. New pan-European research shows that psychiatric services were reduced to emergency care only in many countries.
- The boss of one of the UK’s largest insurance firms has suggested that employers in London’s financial district may be struggling more than those in other cities to persuade office workers to return to their desks as coronavirus restrictions ease. Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General, said there were “a lot fewer people working in the City” compared with urban centres across the UK, Europe and the US.
- Vaccinating older teenagers has been welcomed by many scientists as the “logical next step” in the rollout of the vaccine. But some experts believe more research is needed before extending the programme further. Prof Russell Viner, professor of child and adolescent health at UCL, said more safety data is needed “before we consider vaccinating younger teenagers”.
- These comments followed the news earlier today that the UK will be offering 16 and 17 year olds a first dose of the coronavirus vaccine. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said its decision had been made after ‘large changes’ in the way that Covid has been spreading in the UK, “particularly in younger age groups”.
And as the UK announces that it is offering vaccinations to 16 and 17-year-olds, here’s a rundown on how other countries are approaching the immunisation of minors:
In case you missed it earlier, here’s an excellent analysis from China affairs correspondent Vincent Ni, who has been looking at the dilemma the country faces as it grapples with the Delta virus. Can it continue with its “zero tolerance” strategy?
Here’s more on the outbreak in the Australian state of New South Wales, where authorities are saying that a beach party in Newcastle attended by young people from western Sydney is what triggered a snap lockdown in eight regional local government areas.
NSW recorded 262 coronavirus cases and five deaths in the 24 hours to 8pm Wednesday – its worst day so far in the pandemic. At least 72 cases were in the community for all or part of their infectious period, our correspondent Anne Davis writes.
But it is the detection of fragments of the virus in sewage systems in Armidale and Dubbo as well as in the Newcastle and the Central Coast that has authorities most worried.
There had been low levels detected in Armidale previously, which were thought to have come from an old case, but the levels have now increased to levels similar to those in Newcastle.
There are also concerns about spread into the north coast because of its proximity to south-east Queensland where there have been cases.
NSW authorities said a beach party at Blacksmiths beach which occurred last Friday appeared to be the link to five cases in the Newcastle area.
Strict lockdown restrictions will come into force at 5pm on Thursday for the areas of Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Port Stephens, Cessnock, Dungog, Singleton and Muswellbrook.
Updated
China has reported 62 new cases as it seeks to control outbreaks of the Delta variant across more than half of its provinces, our correspondent Helen Davidson reports.
Two thirds of the new cases were in Jiangsu, where many cases have been linked to airport workers who were infected after cleaning planes arriving from international destinations. Authorities have enacted sweeping travel restrictions, mass testing of entire cities, and lockdown measures affecting tens of millions.
It has already become the biggest outbreak in at least six months, and has affected the capital city Beijing, the flood-ravaged city of Zhongzheng, and Wuhan for the first time since it contained the world’s first Covid-19 outbreak.
More than 450 cases have been attributed to the outbreak, which is now affecting more than two dozen cities across 17 of China’s 31 provinces, and authorities are sounding much less confident than they were just a week ago.
At a pandemic prevention and control meeting in Beijing on Wednesday, vice-premier Sun Chunlan suggested it was not yet under control, telling the meeting the predicted trend of the outbreak “remains uncertain”, state media reported. She urged local authorities to keep a “tight grip” on prevention efforts and to “act decisively” on emerging cases.
China’s strict and often draconian response measures to sporadic outbreaks are under growing scrutiny, as observers question whether the country can continue under a “zero Covid” mantra.
There are questions over the effectiveness of its vaccines in addressing the spread of Delta, and growing community dissatisfaction with snap local lockdowns. Experts have also questioned the merits of a system of accountability over outbreaks, which has seen local officials punished over the emergence of even a few cases.
Welcome
Hello and welcome to our rolling coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Livingstone.
In Japan, some members of a government expert panel have warned that a recent surge in Covid-19 cases was severe enough to impose a nationwide state of emergency. But economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who is in charge of the pandemic response, said the panel ultimately agreed to a government proposal to expand emergency restrictions to eight more prefectures.
In Australia, New South Wales, home to Sydney, has suffered its worst day of the pandemic so far. The state reported 262 new cases, the majority in the country’s biggest city, and five deaths.
The US has disputed calls by the WHO to delay Covid-19 vaccine booster shots to allow distribution to poorer countries, with White House spokesperson Jen Psaki calling it a “false choice”.
Here’s a roundup of what’s been happening over the past 24 hours:
- Future travellers to the US will have to be fully vaccinated a White House official has said. The new requirement is being discussed as part of a phased approach to easing restrictions for foreign visitors.
- Millions of Britons have been given the green light to travel to Europe’s holiday hotspots, avoiding quarantine on return from France and Spain where concerns have been raised about Covid variants. The announcement was part of wider changes to travel rules for people travelling in and out of the UK.
- Mental health services suffered across the whole of Europe because of pandemic restrictions. New pan-European research shows that psychiatric services were reduced to emergency care only in many countries.
- The boss of one of the UK’s largest insurance firms has suggested that employers in London’s financial district may be struggling more than those in other cities to persuade office workers to return to their desks as coronavirus restrictions ease. Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General, said there were “a lot fewer people working in the City” compared with urban centres across the UK, Europe and the US.
- Vaccinating older teenagers has been welcomed by many scientists as the “logical next step” in the rollout of the vaccine. But some experts believe more research is needed before extending the programme further. Prof Russell Viner, professor of child and adolescent health at UCL, said more safety data is needed “before we consider vaccinating younger teenagers”.
- These comments followed the news earlier today that the UK will be offering 16 and 17 year olds a first dose of the coronavirus vaccine. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said its decision had been made after ‘large changes’ in the way that Covid has been spreading in the UK, “particularly in younger age groups”.
Sydney has reported its worst day of the Covid-19 pandemic with five deaths and a record rise in locally acquired infections, Reuters reports, as a weeks-long hard lockdown is struggling to contain the highly contagious Delta strain of the coronavirus.
Four of the five people who died were unvaccinated while one had had one dose, New South Wales state health authorities said, as they implored residents to get inoculated as early as possible.
Authorities also announced a one-week lockdown from Thursday in the region surrounding the state’s second-largest city of Newcastle, 140 km (87 miles) north of Sydney, after six cases were reported there.
That will place an additional 615,000 people under lockdown, raising the total in New South Wales under strict stay-home restrictions to 6 million people out of 8 million in the state, or about a quarter of Australia’s population.
The authorities suspect the outbreak began with a beach party near Newcastle after people travelled from Sydney, an apparent violation of the city’s lockdown.
“Our strongest focus ... is getting to the bottom of how the disease was transmitted and introduced into Newcastle,” New South Wales Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant told reporters, as most cases were still being detected in Sydney, the state capital and Australia’s largest city.
There were 259 new Covid-19 cases in Sydney, out of 262 in all of New South Wales, health authorities said, daily records for the city and the state, which reported a previous high of 239 on Sunday.
There have been more than 4,300 cases in New South Wales during the latest surge that began seven weeks ago after the first case of the Delta variant was detected in an unvaccinated, unmasked limousine driver who transported overseas airline crew.
In the state of Queensland, whose capital Brisbane is under lockdown, another 16 Covid-19 cases were reported on Thursday, the same as the previous two days.
In the state of Victoria, officials are trying to trace three new cases without links to prior infections that were among eight reported on Thursday. The state reported zero cases for the first time in a month on Wednesday.
