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Summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments:
- Israel’s health minister said on Thursday that people over 40 and teachers would be eligible for a third dose of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, expanding its booster campaign to fend off the coronavirus Delta variant.
- In the UK, the House of Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, is facing calls to urge MPs to wear masks in the chamber, after cabinet ministers and many Tory backbenchers shunned the advice during a packed eight-hour debate on Afghanistan.
- Brazil has now registered 20,494,212 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 572,641, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the US and India and its second-deadliest after the US.
- Police in Kenya used teargas and fired shots in the air to break up protests in Nairobi after a man was allegedly killed by officers for violating the country’s Covid curfew. Shops were looted as unrest grew after John Kiiru’s death, which came just two days after six police officers appeared in court over the death of two brothers this month after they also allegedly broke the curfew.
- A plan to start offering Covid booster vaccinations in the UK from early September is extremely unlikely to happen, it is understood, given the concerns of the government’s vaccines watchdog about the clinical benefits and potential wider risks to vaccine confidence. Immunologist Prof Peter Openshaw also said that the results of ongoing studies to determine their effectiveness “should not be prejudged”.
- The mass rollout of Covid-19 booster vaccines in Britain to residents over 50 this autumn could be shelved, with government scientists considering limiting third doses only to the most vulnerable, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.
- An online open-source intelligence group last year identified that a virus studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology taken from an abandoned copper mine in Yunnan province was the closest known relative to Sars-CoV-2, the Economist reports in a piece which also considers the case for a zoonotic origin to Covid.
- A Spanish court has lifted a coronavirus curfew imposed on most of Catalonia, including the capital Barcelona, leaving it in place in just a fraction of the northeastern region. The high court of justice of Catalonia said the measure was “not justified” because infection rates had improved.
- Joe Biden said he and his wife, Jill, would receive a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to boost their immunity, as his administration announced booster shots would be offered to Americans in September. He also announced that nursing home staff would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 as a condition for those facilities to continue receiving federal Medicare and Medicaid funding.
- Hospitalisations of people under the age of 50 with Covid-19 are now at the highest levels seen in the US since the start of the pandemic, the latest government data shows. The largest increases in hospitalisations was among those in their 30s and the under-18s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- The hoarding of Covid jabs by rich countries which are also rolling out booster shots “makes a mockery of vaccine equity” pledges, the Africa director for the World Health Organization said. But she noted that cases across Africa are levelling off and more vaccine doses are finally arriving on the continent
- The French scientist who promoted the discredited hydroxychloroquine treatment for Covid-19 backed by Donald Trump faces being pushed out of the infectious diseases institute he founded amid concerns from key members over its role in feeding conspiracy theories and an investigation by regulators into its clinical studies.
Thanks so much for joining me this evening. I’m now handing over to my colleagues in Australia.
Brazil has had 36,315 new cases of the novel coronavirus reported in the past 24 hours, and 979 deaths from Covid-19, the health ministry said on Thursday.
The South American country has now registered 20,494,212 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 572,641, according to ministry data, in the world’s third worst outbreak outside the US and India and its second-deadliest after the US.
As vaccination advances, the rolling 7-day average of Covid deaths has fallen to less that one third of the toll of almost 3,000 a day at the peak of the pandemic in April.
The mass rollout of Covid-19 booster vaccines in Britain to residents over 50 this autumn could be shelved, with government scientists considering limiting third doses only to the most vulnerable, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.
Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) had drawn up plans to roll out a booster programme from September, based on interim advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the newspaper said.
However, sources close to the committee told The Telegraph there is limited evidence to support such an approach and a “far more restricted” group, focused on those most in need, may be targeted, PA news reports.
A government spokesman was quoted as saying by the newspaper:
Any booster programme will be based on the final advice of the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.
Until we receive the independent JCVI advice, no decisions can be made on wider requirements for those who receive booster jabs.
Oxford vaccine chief Andrew Pollard said earlier this month that booster shots for Covid-19 vaccines were not currently needed by Britain and the doses should be given to other countries.
Britain had been planning for a Covid-19 vaccine booster programme, and health secretary Sajid Javid said he expected the programme to begin in early September, pending final advice from officials.
A total of 47.41 million people in the country had received a first dose of a vaccine against coronavirus through August 17 and 40.99 million people had received a second dose.
US officials thought their British counterparts “were out of their minds” in aiming for herd immunity as part of Boris Johnson’s initial policy on dealing with the coronavirus, according to a new book about the global response to the pandemic.
As the scale of the threat became increasingly clear in January and February 2020, officials in Donald Trump’s administration were trying to convince him to take the threat seriously, despite personal reassurances he had been given by Chinese president, Xi Jinping, that it was under control.
But they were even more shocked by the approach being taken in the UK. In a book to be published next Tuesday, Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, British health experts at the time are described as being “oddly pessimistic about their capacity to defeat the virus”, rejecting measures such as a ban on mass gatherings.
“We thought they were out of their minds. We told them it would be an absolutely devastating approach to deal with the pandemic,” one US official told the authors, Thomas Wright, a foreign affairs expert at the Brookings Institution, and Colin Kahl, who is now under secretary of defence for policy. “We thought they were nuts and they thought we were nuts. It turns out, in the end, we were a little more right than they were.”
It was Trump who was persuaded to change course first, reluctantly agreeing to a three-week shutdown on 11 March, at a time when 150,000 people were attending the Cheltenham horse races in Britain.
But Trump and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, were to shape America’s international response around the desire to see China punished, rather than building an international coalition to contain the spread of the virus.
Trump felt he had been betrayed by Xi. “These guys have fucked us and they fucked me personally,” he told his staff, according to the authors. He started insisting the disease be referred to as “the China virus”.
The book also describes the breakdown in attempts to build a concerted G7 response to the outbreak. France, which was handing over the rotating group presidency to the US, sought guidance from Washington on the administration’s intentions but it came as a shock to French officials “that the White House had no ideas of its own”.
Paris asked the administration for a call among G7 leaders. The White House agreed, but only on condition the French organise it. Then, when G7 foreign ministers convened by videoconference on 26 March, they were unable even to agree on a joint statement due to Pompeo’s insistence that references to the Covid-19 be replaced by the “Wuhan virus”.
Read the full story here:
The French scientist who promoted the discredited hydroxychloroquine treatment for Covid-19 backed by Donald Trump faces being pushed out of the infectious diseases institute he founded, amid concerns from key members over its role in feeding conspiracy theories and an investigation by regulators into its clinical studies.
Didier Raoult has built a worldwide following throughout the pandemic for his support of the malaria drug despite its failure in randomised control trials. Multiple studies, including by the Recovery trial and the World Health Organisation, have found hydroxychloroquine to be ineffective in treating Covid-19.
University professors must retire at the age of 68 in France. Raoult turned 69 in March, and so from 31 August will no longer be eligible to continue his post as a researcher and medical practitioner at the University of Aix-Marseille and Marseille University Hospitals.
His age does not disqualify him from continuing as director of the Marseille-based infectious diseases institute he founded, IHU Méditerranée Infection, but François Crémieux, the director of Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille (AP-HM), one of the founding member institutions of the IHU, told Le Monde it is not reasonable for Raoult to continue there after he ceases to practise medicine and conduct university research.
Crémieux and Eric Berton, president of the University of Aix-Marseille, another founding member, told the paper they will propose a search for a new director in September. Berton said they would “put the process on the table and see how the other founding members position themselves”.
Jean-Luc Jouve, the president of the AP-HM’s medical commission, told the French newspaper that Raoult had requested to continue in his position at the hospital on a part-time basis, but that his proposal would not be accepted. “There are more than enough teams at the IHU to make up for his departure,” Jouve said.
Read the full story here:
The Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, is facing calls to urge MPs to wear masks in the chamber, after cabinet ministers and many Tory backbenchers shunned the advice during a packed eight-hour debate on Afghanistan.
Although face coverings stopped being mandatory in most settings on 19 July, government guidance that face coverings should be work in “crowded and enclosed spaces” remains in place, and rules set down by the parliamentary authorities say they should be worn in the main debating space.
Four trade unions representing parliamentary staffers wrote to Hoyle on Thursday raising concerns that the scenes of unmasked politicians sitting shoulder to shoulder on the green benches represented “the starkest example yet of the unwillingness of a significant number of MPs to take the most basic of precautionary measures to help protect staff”.
They said the “dismissiveness” was insulting and also claimed there was confusion about who was responsible for “ensuring a safe working environment in parliament”, after Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said questions about the rules on masks in the Commons and Lords were “a matter for the parliamentary authorities”.
The Guardian can reveal there has been an “uptick” in Covid cases among security workers around the estate in the previous two weeks. As a result, new guidance was issued the day after parliament returned for its one-day recall, telling security staff they must get tested by Saturday at the latest.
They have also been told to wear a face covering at all times unless exempt and to maintain social distancing, despite the legal 2-metre requirement also being dropped last month.
Read more here:
Israel’s health minister said on Thursday that people over 40 and teachers would be eligible for a third dose of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, expanding its booster campaign to fend off the coronavirus Delta variant.
Israel began administering third doses to people over 60 in July, later dropping the minimum age of eligibility to 50 and offering boosters to health workers and others, Reuters reports.
A summary of today's developments
-
Police in Kenya used teargas and fired shots in the air to break up protests in Nairobi after a man was allegedly killed by officers for violating the country’s Covid curfew. Shops were looted as unrest grew after John Kiiru’s death, which came just two days after six police officers appeared in court over the death of two brothers this month after they also allegedly broke the curfew.
- A plan to start offering Covid booster vaccinations in the UK from early September is extremely unlikely to happen, it is understood, given the concerns of the government’s vaccines watchdog about the clinical benefits and potential wider risks to vaccine confidence. Immunologist Prof Peter Openshaw also said that the results of ongoing studies to determine their effectiveness “should not be prejudged”.
-
An online open-source intelligence group last year identified that a virus studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology taken from an abandoned copper mine in Yunnan province was the closest known relative to Sars-CoV-2, the Economist reports in a piece which also considers the case for a zoonotic origin to Covid.
- A Spanish court has lifted a coronavirus curfew imposed on most of Catalonia, including the capital Barcelona, leaving it in place in just a fraction of the northeastern region. The high court of justice of Catalonia said the measure was “not justified” because infection rates had improved.
- Joe Biden said he and his wife, Jill, would receive a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to boost their immunity, as his administration announced booster shots would be offered to Americans in September. He also announced that nursing home staff would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 as a condition for those facilities to continue receiving federal Medicare and Medicaid funding.
- Hospitalisations of people under the age of 50 with Covid-19 are now at the highest levels seen in the US since the start of the pandemic, the latest government data shows. The largest increases in hospitalisations was among those in their 30s and the under-18s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- The hoarding of Covid jabs by rich countries which are also rolling out booster shots “makes a mockery of vaccine equity” pledges, the Africa director for the World Health Organization said. But she noted that cases across Africa are levelling off and more vaccine doses are finally arriving on the continent
- The French scientist who promoted the discredited hydroxychloroquine treatment for Covid-19 backed by Donald Trump faces being pushed out of the infectious diseases institute he founded amid concerns from key members over its role in feeding conspiracy theories and an investigation by regulators into its clinical studies.
Updated
Meanwhile, a new book detailing the relationship between the US, China and the WHO during the pandemic shows how Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautiously praised China in public while pressuring it in private, the Washington Post reports.
Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order, written by Thomas Wright and Colin Kahl and due to be published on Tuesday, reveals how Tedros lost patience with China: When a WHO scientist on a coronavirus origins probe announced in February that the idea that the virus leaked from a lab was ‘extremely unlikely’ and unworthy of further investigation, senior WHO staff in Geneva were shocked. ‘We fell off our chairs,’ one member told the authors.
The team in Wuhan appeared to have given in to Chinese pressure to dismiss the idea without a real investigation. Later, when the WHO-China team released a report that again dismissed that scenario, Tedros pushed back, saying that the research was not ‘extensive enough’ and that there had not been ‘timely and comprehensive data-sharing’.
Since then, relations between the WHO and China have nosedived. Chinese officials said in July that they would not accept any further investigation into the origin of the coronavirus in China and accused the US of pressuring scientists. The WHO last week released a statement that resisted the idea that ‘the origins study has been politicised, or that WHO has acted due to political pressure’.
Wright and Kahl report that WHO leadership in Geneva were ‘stunned’ by their colleague’s statement. They did not believe the team that went to Wuhan had the access or data to rule out the lab-leak theory. Tedros told the investigative team this, the book reports, but the team was ‘defensive’, describing pressure from Chinese officials that led to a compromise.
At a media briefing yesterday, WHO emergencies chief Mike Ryan said the organization was working behind the scenes to increase confidence in an investigation, and “we are making headway on that, but I have to admit, that has not been easy.”
Updated
The Economist reports an online open-source intelligence group calling itself Drastic last year identified that a virus studied at the Wuhan Institute of Virology taken from an abandoned copper mine in Yunnan province is the closest known relative to Sars-CoV-2.
The report sees importance in the removal, on 12 September 2019, of a database containing details of sequences and samples from the WIV. This is read as the beginning of a cover-up, and thus as the point when the authorities first knew something had gone amiss, arguing for a leak in late August or early September. The WIV says it was a response to cyber-attacks.
A leak is not the only research-related possibility. The first person infected could have been someone employed by the WIV or another lab to collect bats and samples – the prospect to which [the World Health Organization’s] Dr Ben Embarek pointed in his television interview. And it is important to remember that some other form of spillover outside the lab, either directly from a bat or by way of some other species, may well be to blame.
China clearly does not want lab-leaks investigated; but that does not mean it knows one happened. It is also being misleading about Huanan market, denying access to early-case data and obfuscating in various other non-lab-leak-specific ways. The most obvious explanation is that it does not really want any definitive answer to the question. An unsanitary market, a reckless bat-catcher or a hapless spelunker would not be as bad in terms of blame as a source in a government laboratory. But any definite answer to the origin question probably leaves China looking bad, unless it can find a way to blame someone else. To that end China has called for an investigation of Fort Detrick in Maryland, historically the home of American bioweapons research; state media regularly publish speculations about its involvement.
The lengthy, sober piece, subtitled “Origins and obfuscation”, also raises the possibility of other potential origins of Covid – after WHO mission chief to Wuhan Embarek’s stunning I-turn last week in which he suggested patient zero could have been a lab worker after all.
A Scientific Reports paper found that 18 species of mammal had been for sale in Wuhan between May 2017 and November 2019; gunshot wounds and trapping injuries suggested that almost a third of them were taken from the wild. Although the paper was published only recently, it was submitted to the journal in October 2020. Chinese law requires that all Covid-19 research be reviewed by the government before it is sent to a journal. Some Chinese authorities would have known of its contents before the team arrived.
The market is not the only way for animals and the pathogens they carry to get into Wuhan. The horseshoe bats in which the closest wild relatives to Sars-CoV-2 have been found do not live anywhere near the city, but the two laboratories there that were known to have engaged in coronavirus research received samples from bat caves around the country. The joint-study team was not allowed to investigate the procedures around, or documentation of, this research; when it visited the laboratories the team was shown presentations on safety procedures but no more.
Updated
The US is urging the more than 150 countries planning to send their leader or a government minister to New York to speak in person at the UN general assembly next month to consider giving a video address instead.
A note from the US mission sent to the 192 other UN member nations also called for all other UN-hosted meetings and side events to be virtual, saying these parallel meetings that draw travellers to New York “needlessly increase risk [from Covid] to our community, New Yorkers and the other travellers.”
The Associated Press reports that the note said the Biden administration is particularly concerned about secretary-general Antonio Guterres and the incoming general assembly president Abdulla Shahid hosting high-level in-person events.
“The US is willing to make every effort to make these important events on shared priorities successful in a virtual format,” the note said.
The UN decided in late July to let world leaders attend their annual gathering, known as the general debate, from 21-27 September in person — or to deliver prerecorded speeches if Covid-19 restrictions prevented them from travelling.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the UN had already put in place a number of measures to deal with the delta variant, including mandatory mask-wearing at the headquarters and reporting of vaccination status and positive Covid-19 tests.
It also has mandatory vaccination requirements for some personnel, including those servicing intergovernmental meetings prior to the high-level week, he said.
“We are obviously in continuous discussion with member states, who will have to make decisions, and the host country,” Dujarric said. “The secretary-general will continue to focus on keeping everyone in the UN community safe.”
Updated
Trade unions representing parliamentary staff have urged the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, to take action to ensure MPs wear face masks in the chamber.
MPs were sitting shoulder to shoulder in the Commons yesterday, with some wearing face coverings but many – including prime minister Boris Johnson and health secretary Sajid Javid – were not.
Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, said all MPs should take the “basic step” of wearing face masks to protect staff.
Unions will not stand by while staff are put at risk by reckless politicians and following this shameful episode we are once again asking the speaker to take a tougher line with MPs when Parliament returns next month.
It comes as a government public health adviser has warned that the image of maskless Conservative MPs sitting across from a majority of opposition politicians wearing face coverings in a packed parliament “illustrates very starkly” how the issue has become politicised.
Prof Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) which advises the government, told Times Radio:
There seems to be an increasing political polarisation. From the scenes in the Commons, with the Conservatives not wearing masks and, on the Labour benches, everyone wearing masks, I think that just illustrates very starkly the politicisation of this issue, which really should not be a political topic.
I think what was evident in those crowded conditions in the House of Commons, clearly fell into the guidance which is being given by the government, which is that you should wear masks in crowded spaces.
I think also the government is getting different messages from different quarters. The message that is coming through from the scientists, I hope, is one of continued caution, but of course they’re under a lot of pressure from many who represent vital businesses that, actually, we’ve got to get on and return to normal life, and I don’t envy the government having to balance these very, very loud voices from different sides.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said yesterday the situation in the Commons was a matter for the parliamentary authorities, but added that the advice “still remains” that face coverings should be worn in crowded indoor spaces.
One rule for them and another for us …
Updated
Sonny Chiba, the Japanese martial arts movie star who found late-career renown in Hollywood after outspoken admiration from Quentin Tarantino, has died aged 82 from a Covid-related illness.
Variety reported that it had received confirmation of the news from Chiba’s agent. With an acting career beginning in the 1960s with a string of roles in Japanese martial arts films and TV shows, Chiba became widely known in the west after being name-checked in True Romance, the 1993 thriller written by Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. By then, Chiba had become a star in Japan, appearing in titles such as the 1970s Street Fighter trilogy (and its spin-off, Sister Street Fighter), Bullet Train and Champion of Death.
Updated
Hospitalisations of people under the age of 50 with Covid-19 are now at the highest levels seen in the US since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, the latest government data shows.
The largest increases in hospitalisations was among those in their 30s and the under-18s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The previous peak in coronavirus patients under 50 needing to be hospitalised was in January of this year.
Updated
The French scientist who promoted the discredited hydroxychloroquine treatment for Covid-19 backed by Donald Trump faces being pushed out of the infectious diseases institute he founded amid concerns from key members over its role in feeding conspiracy theories and an investigation by regulators into its clinical studies.
Didier Raoult has built a worldwide following throughout the pandemic for his support of the malaria drug despite its failure in randomised control trials. Multiple studies, including by the Recovery trial and the World Health Organization, have found hydroxychloroquine to be ineffective in treating Covid-19.
Updated
Isolation alerts continue to fall after 'logic' change to NHS Covid app
The number of people instructed to self-isolate by the NHS Covid-19 app has continued to fall, reaching its lowest number since the week to 23 June.
A total of 261,453 alerts were sent to users of the app for England and Wales in the week to 11 August, down by 18% on the previous week when 317,519 were pinged.
The latest government figures cover the first full week when the “logic” behind the tool was tweaked to alert fewer people who have been in close contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.
Venue check-ins have also dropped to a little over 1.3m - 477,748 less than the week before. Several sectors have been blighted by staff shortages as a result of the so-called “pingdemic”, PA reports.
The rules were eased on 16 August, when people who are fully vaccinated against coronavirus were told they no longer have to isolate if they come into contact with someone who tests positive – though they are advised to wear a mask, reduce their contact with others and take a test. App pings reached an all-time high in the week to 21 July, peaking at 690,518 alerts.
Updated
Police in Kenya used teargas and fired shots in the air to break up protests in Nairobi on Thursday after a man was allegedly killed by officers for violating the country’s Covid-19 curfew.
Shops were looted as unrest enveloped the eastern Nairobi district of Kayole after John Kiiru’s death, residents told French news agency AFP. His widow, Esther Wanjiru, said her husband had called her shortly after midnight and told her he had been beaten by police, but she did not hear from him again.
His body was found on Thursday, but locals blocked roads and set fires to try to prevent police from taking it away.
Police said they were investigating the death of a 38-year-old motorcycle taxi rider.
The incident comes just two days after six police officers appeared in a Nairobi court over the death of two brothers in early August for allegedly breaking the 10pm to 4am coronavirus curfew in force across Kenya.
Prosecutor said the officers – who already suspended from the force – will face murder charges in a case that has provoked a national outcry and sometimes violent demonstrations.
Updated
UK reports 113 further Covid-linked deaths and 36,572 new cases
A further 113 people have died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for coronavirus, according to the latest update to the government’s coronavirus dashboard on Thursday.
Separate figures published by the Office for National Statistics show there have been 156,000 deaths registered in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
As of 9am on Thursday, there had been a further 36,572 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, with the seven-day trend in infections up almost 8%. A total of 808,235 virus tests were carried out.
There were 804 Covid patients admitted to hospital.
Updated
Nearly 3 million young adults in the UK have not had a first dose of coronavirus vaccine, despite a host of initiatives aimed at increasing uptake among 18- to 29-year-olds.
According to official figures published by the UK’s four health agencies, 2.9 million from that age group have not answered calls to take the vaccine, including nearly 2.5 million in England. The data comes amid a slowdown in uptake: the latest estimate only slightly lower than the previous estimate of 3 million one week ago.
A host of initiatives have been launched in recent weeks to encourage vaccine take-up among young adults, including renewed appeals from political leaders and pop-up vaccination centres.
In England a number of food delivery and taxi-hailing companies have been enlisted to offer discounted rides and meals for customers who have received a first dose.
Wales is the only nation to have managed to give a first dose to more than three-quarters of young adults, with an estimated 75.8% having received one jab. Scotland is next on 73.2%, followed by England on 70.8% and Northern Ireland on 66.3%.
Updated
Biden and first lady to get booster shots as US plans rollout
Joe Biden has said he and his wife, Jill, would receive a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine to boost their immunity, as his administration announced booster shots would be offered to Americans in September.
“We will get the booster shots,” the president told ABC News. The booster programme is being launched even as millions of Americans have yet to have their initial shots and as many more people around the world await vaccine supplies.
US health officials defended the administration’s plan to offer additional vaccine protection against the virus, saying they could still donate millions of doses worldwide and continue encouraging people to get their first shot.
“When we see evidence that immunity is waning, especially in the face of this Delta variant ... We have an obligation to act to protect people at home,” US surgeon general Vivek Murthy told MSNBC.
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said data showed a need for further protection amid the Delta variant and waning vaccine effectiveness over time, although it was unclear how often Covid booster shots would be needed in the future.
“We know we need a boost now … but I don’t think it’s a given that we will be doing this continuously,” she told NBC News.
It comes amid concerns within the UK government’s vaccines watchdog about the clinical benefits and potential wider risks to vaccine confidence of boosters, as we reported earlier.
Immunologist Prof Peter Openshaw also said today that the results of ongoing studies to determine their effectiveness “should not be prejudged”.
Updated
From Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca to wildlife tourism in Nepal, we look at communities left adrift when the visitors stopped and their plans for the future
The European commission has said it had reached a temporary agreement with South Africa to use a plant there to bottle Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines that are being imported into the EU.
Reuters reports the deal is likely to stir concerns about drugmakers’ power in negotiating supply deals with countries, after WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said yesterday he was “stunned” by news that J&J vaccines were being exported from South Africa to the EU.
This was because the EU has already very high vaccination rates, while in many African countries not even the most vulnerable have been vaccinated. The demand by J&J to prevent South Africa from imposing export restrictions, which richer countries have been able to do, was described as “a colonialist extraction”.
A spokesperson for the European commission said the agreement with South Africa was reached after a US Food and Drug Administration inspection report found unsanitary conditions and other problems at a Baltimore manufacturing plant that ruined more than 15m doses of Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.
Under the deal, Aspen Pharmacare bottles the vaccine substance produced elsewhere, and then transfers the finished doses to South Africa and the EU. A J&J factory in Leiden, in the Netherlands, is a major producer of its vaccine substance for Covid-19 shots worldwide.
Fatima Hassan, executive director of the Health Justice Initiative, said:
It is time that all secret vaccine contracts with vaccine manufacturers and distributors are published and reviewed - we have a right to know what has been agreed in our name. In our view, J&J are complicit in vaccine apartheid, diverting doses from those who really need them to the wealthiest countries on earth. It’s colonialist extraction, plain and simple.
Updated
Many rich countries are considering offering a third dose of the Covid vaccine to those who have already received two. But are these booster shots necessary?
Preliminary data shows that people experience a fall in protective antibody levels weeks and months after getting their jabs, particularly against the highly infectious Delta variant. However, it is unclear what level of antibodies or other tools in the immune system’s armament confer protective immunity.
WHO experts have said there is not enough scientific evidence to support the additional shot.
But in people with certain underlying conditions that have weakened immune systems, the initial response to the two shots is far from optimum, so in those cases the argument for booster jabs can be made, especially against the highly infectious Delta variant, some scientists have argued.
Updated
Vaccines stockpiling by richer countries is “causing much preventable suffering, needlessly prolonging the pandemic, and leaving us all at risk of vaccine resistant variants”, writes British Medical Journal editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee.
It is not a lack of manufacturing capacity: it is possible to make enough vaccines for the world. Instead, vaccine-preventable deaths and illness are occurring across Africa, Asia, and Latin America at an unprecedented speed and scale. And the reason? A free-market, profit-driven enterprise that is based on patent and intellectual property protection, combined with a lack of political will. So, while rich countries hoard a billion unused doses, poorer nations, with only 1-2% of their populations vaccinated, remain at the mercy of the virus.
The answer is equally clear, say our editorialists. Vaccine manufacture needs to be globalised, intellectual property rights relaxed to allow technology transfer, and regional manufacturing hubs established. More than 100 countries have backed this approach, but it is being blocked by vaccine manufacturers and rich countries.
Centuries of injustice have diverted wealth from Africa, leaving the continent without the necessary manufacturing infrastructure. By contrast India has no shortage of manufacturing capacity, but production has been restricted to the two vaccine manufacturers with patent rights, and half of the doses produced in India are exported or given away in aid. Erratic supply has led to confusion, discrimination, and corruption.
Updated
The EU will recognise national Covid certificates from Turkey, Ukraine and North Macedonia from tomorrow, opening the way to easier travel for their residents, the European commission said.
AFP reports that the “equivalence decisions” mean those three countries’ certificates will be connected to the bloc-wide EU digital Covid certificate system, the EU executive said.
EU certificates show whether the bearer is fully vaccinated with vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), has recovered from a Covid-19 infection or has a recent negative Covid test.
Turkey, Ukraine and North Macedonia in turn are accepting the EU’s Covid certificates, the statement said.
“I am pleased to see that the list of countries implementing a system based on the EU digital Covid certificate is growing steadily and we are setting standards internationally,” the EU justice commissioner, Didier Reynders, said. “This will help to facilitate safe travel, also beyond the borders of our union.”
The decisions, however, carry a caveat where it comes to vaccinations. The EU one recognises only four vaccines – BioNTech/Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. EU countries though can decide to accept others.
Ukraine’s vaccine portfolio has those four – but also one from China’s Sinovac. Turkey and North Macedonia both administer Sinovac and another Chinese one, from Sinopharm, as well as Russia’s Sputnik V, also not recognised by the EU scheme, alongside BioNTech/Pfizer and AstraZeneca shots, AFP reports.
Updated
A man from Southampton in the UK is taking legal action over “despicable” conditions in a quarantine hotel that he said left him “traumatised” and suffering from depression.
Pritheepal Singh stayed at Park Plaza Waterloo, London, after visiting a sick relative in India. He told the BBC the experience was like prison, with restricted exercise and food that was inappropriate for his religion.
It was pure fear. I had to go and speak to my doctors. I couldn’t sleep at night. I didn’t know that I was going to be treated like a Covid prisoner. It is despicable behaviour – just not acceptable.”
The BBC quoted him as saying security guards stayed by his room to stop him leaving and allocated restricted fresh air breaks on the hotel roof. He added that he was served halal meat, which was not appropriate for his religion.
Singh said he tested positive for coronavirus 11 days after leaving the hotel, where he had two negative tests.
On 12 August, the government raised the price of hotel quarantine per adult from £1,750 to £2,285, the BBC reports.
Updated
Barcelona curfew 'not justified' as infection rates fall, court rules
A Spanish court has lifted a coronavirus curfew imposed on most of Catalonia, including the capital Barcelona, leaving it in place in just a fraction of the northeastern region.
AFP reports that Catalonia’s government in mid-July imposed a nightly curfew between 1am and 6am in most municipalities to fight a surge in virus cases, and the region’s top court then gave the green light to extend it three times.
But faced with a request by the regional government to keep the curfew in place in 148 municipalities, the high court of justice of Catalonia said the measure was “not justified” in 129 of them, because infection rates there had improved.
“In these circumstances, the measures are not so much justified on health grounds, but for reasons of security or public order,” the court said in its ruling, turning down the Catalan government’s request.
The court did keep in place for one more week a ban on public or private gatherings of more than 10 people throughout Catalonia, AFP reports.
Catalonia’s infection rate stood yesterday at 328 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over a 14-day period, below the national average of 378 cases, according to health ministry figures.
UK Covid booster jabs highly unlikely to begin soon, JCVI sources say
A plan to start offering Covid booster vaccinations in the UK from early September is extremely unlikely to happen, it is understood, given the concerns of the government’s vaccines watchdog about the clinical benefits and potential wider risks to vaccine confidence.
No formal date has been set for third vaccinations as clinical trials continue, but the Department for Health and Social Care and the NHS have talked about their starting early next month after results from a series of clinical trials due this month.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises ministers, met this morning, however, and is expected to tell them that significantly more work is needed before booster jabs can be rolled out.
This would cover not only who might gain a net clinical benefit from another vaccination, but also complex and broader issues about whether the plan is even necessary at all and concerns about excessive focus on Covid jabs hampering public confidence in vaccination more generally.
“The jury is still very much out on what happens,” one JCVI source said. “One of the consistent things we have found is that when we undertake clinical trials, the results can be surprising.”
Updated
Many people on Twitter are using the hashtag #together to take a stand against “discriminatory” vaccine passports.
I oppose vaccine passports because they are
— Lee Jones (@DrLeeJones) August 19, 2021
- ineffective (vaccinated people still spread COVID-19)
- discriminatory (against those who do not want/ cannot have the vaccine) and
- authoritarian (no to a "papers, please" society) #together pic.twitter.com/Icj5nG7YPF
I am opposed to Covid passports. They are ineffective (the vaccinated are still infectious), illiberal and discriminatory. #together pic.twitter.com/ChZxrpPtbQ
— Laura Dodsworth (@BareReality) August 19, 2021
Shami Chakrabarti, shadow attorney general for England and Wales from 2016 to 2020, and director of Liberty from 2003 to 2016, wrote recently:
I could rehearse the arguments about racism, sexual harassment and all the other ways in which domestic pass laws of any kind will inevitably lead to discrimination, corruption and oppression. I will only say that as this new kind of compulsory ID is explicitly about health data, it crosses a further line into personal privacy as well as liberty.
Updated
An MSNBC columnist and lawyer has said “Fox News is back to lying about Covid vaccine”, after he filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against the channel for possible violations of the Covid-19 Consumer Protection Act.
Typically, when Fox News spews lies or misinformation on political issues, my response is a mix of fact-checking and eye rolls. But the current misinformation campaign about the Covid-19 vaccine from some of Fox News’ most popular hosts demands more than a typical response given lives are on the line.
People receiving accurate information about the Covid-19 vaccines is literally a matter of life and death. But look at what is undeniably deceptive information coming from Fox News about the vaccine.
For example, Tucker Carlson in April made comments on his top-rated Fox News show about the vaccine that were deemed a “pants on fire” lie by nonpartisan fact-checkers. “If the vaccine is effective, there is no reason for people who’ve received a vaccine to wear masks or avoid physical contact,” Carlson told his millions of viewers. “Maybe it doesn’t work, and they’re simply not telling you that,” he added irresponsibly.
Carlson continued on with more baseless info: “Well, you’d hate to think that, especially if you’ve gotten two shots. But what’s the other potential explanation? We can’t think of one.”
But it’s not just Carlson. A report by media watchdog organization Media Matters for America released Friday examined comments made on Fox News between June 28 and July 11. It found that “57 percent of segments about coronavirus vaccines on the network included claims that undermined or downplayed vaccination efforts.”
US president Joe Biden has announced that his administration will require that nursing home staff be vaccinated against Covid-19 as a condition for those facilities to continue receiving federal Medicare and Medicaid funding.
“If you visit, live or work in a nursing home, you should not be at a high risk for contracting Covid from unvaccinated employees,” Biden said.
The new mandate, in the form of a forthcoming regulation to be issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, could take effect as soon as next month, AP reports.
Hundreds of thousands of nursing home workers are not vaccinated, according to federal data, despite those facilities bearing the brunt of the early Covid-19 outbreak and their workers being among the first in the country to be eligible for shots.
It comes as the Biden administration seeks to raise the costs for those who have yet to get vaccinated, after months of incentives and giveaways proved to be insufficient to drive tens of millions of Americans to get the jabs.
AP reports that in the past three weeks, Biden has forced millions of federal workers to attest to their vaccination status or face onerous new requirements, with even stricter requirements for federal workers in frontline health roles, and his administration has moved toward mandating vaccines for the military as soon as next month.
The nation’s rate of new vaccinations has nearly doubled over the past month. More than 200m Americans have now received at least one dose of the vaccines, according to the White House, but about 80m Americans are eligible but have not yet been vaccinated.
It comes as the New York Times reports that all teachers and school personnel in Washington state, including coaches, bus drivers and volunteers, will need to be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment, under a new policy announced by governor Jay Inslee.
The policy is the strictest vaccine mandate imposed to date by any state for teachers and other staff members in schools, allowing for only a few exceptions. School staff must be vaccinated by 18 October or face possible dismissal.
Immunologist Prof Peter Openshaw has told the BBC the issue of booster jabs is “contentious” and that the results of ongoing studies to determine their effectiveness “should not be prejudged”.
Prof Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), which advises the UK government, said:
Its offering good protection against the more severe disease, that’s very important to emphasise. There still is breakthrough infection in a proportion of people even if they have been doubly vaccinated. So the question of boosters is a contentious one. I think we really need specific studies on the effect of boosters and those studies are ongoing - we shouldn’t prejudge those. Everyone is very keen that if we do have surplus vaccines that they are not necessarily used in this country but might be sent overseas to be used by people who are in desperate need of vaccination.
There are people with impaired immune systems for whom boosters will be necessary because they won’t have developed a very good response when they have been given the conventional two-dose vaccines. But as a general boost to the vaccine programme, I think we really need to look at the data more.
My colleague Peter Walker has the latest:
NEW: ministers are set to be told that the plan to start offering Covid booster jabs early next month is very unlikely to happen, and more research is needed into both clinical benefits and the impact on vaccine confidence, JCVI sources say. Story soon.
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) August 19, 2021
Updated
The hoarding of Covid jabs by rich countries which are also rolling out booster shots “makes a mockery of vaccine equity” pledges, the Africa director for the World Health Organization has said
Matshidiso Moeti and other African health officials, including the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have warned against booster shots in recent weeks as less than 2% of the population on the continent of 1.3bn people is fully vaccinated.
Moeti noted that the latest resurgence in cases across Africa is levelling off and more vaccine doses are finally arriving on the continent, but “Africa is encountering headwinds” as rich countries like the US and the UK decide to roll out booster shots.
She pointed out that rich countries have on average administered more than 103 vaccine doses per 100 people, while in Africa it is just six, AP reports.
Earlier this week the WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called it “unconscionable” that some countries are now offering booster shots “while so many people remain unprotected.”
Updated
South Africa is seeing “vaccine apathy or vaccine fatigue,” Nomafrench Mbombo, a Western Cape provincial health minister, has warned.
Since mass public vaccination began in May, only 11% of the nationwide adult population has so far been fully immunised and many vaccination sites are standing empty despite hundreds of Covid-related deaths each day.
“We don’t have a situation of vaccine constraint,” the deputy director of the national health department, Nicholas Crisp, said last week. “Now we need vaccine demand, because it has decreased due to lost of impetus in the programme.”
AFP reports that in addition to government-run clinics and centres, private organisations including mosques, farms, mines, pharmacies and health insurance companies have opened up vaccination sites in towns and cities.
But the numbers of people in the country of 59m people coming forward to be immunised have dropped to under 200,000 a day in recent weeks, falling short of the set target of 300,000.
The current vaccination regimen applies to people aged 35 and older, but from 1 September will be open to anyone aged 18 years or above.
The vaccine-hesitant cite “three primary concerns: side-effects, the effectiveness of the vaccine, and distrust of the vaccine and/or institutions,” said a study, conducted in July by the Human Sciences Research Council and the University of Johannesburg.
Concerned at the slowdown in vaccinations, the government yesterday staged a media campaign to drive home the vaccine safety message, seeking to encourage more people to take the shot. But one of the panelists, health journalist Pontsho Pilane, said low uptake was the symptom of a lack of trust between the government and the public. “South Africans don’t necessarily trust their government,” she said.
Some people, she said, would question why they would have faith in a vaccine being offered by the same government that fails to provide them with basic services such as clean water.
Updated
The World Health Organization has urged Indonesia to take action to stem the spread of coronavirus, with retail and recreation reaching pre-pandemic levels in some key regions.
Reuters have the story:
Indonesia, which last month became the epicentre of Asia’s coronavirus outbreak, has social mobility restrictions in place that currently allow malls and restaurants in designated areas to operate at 25% capacity.
The WHO’s latest situation report highlighted “a notable increase in community mobility in retail and recreation” in the provinces of Banten, West Java and Central Java, collectively home to about 97m people.
Retail and recreation spaces refers to restaurants, cafes, shopping malls, libraries, museums and theme parks. Based on Google data from the second week of August, the WHO said mobility reached levels not seen since February 2020.
“Formulation of a concrete plan and urgent action are crucial to anticipate and mitigate the impact of increased mobility on transmission and health system capacity,” the report said.
Driven by the highly infectious Delta variant, daily coronavirus cases in Indonesia hit more than 56,000 last month, with hospitals on the most populous island of Java short on beds and oxygen and inundated with patients.
Daily cases have dropped significantly to about 15,000 on 18 August, but testing rates have also fallen and the death toll has remained high.
The New South Wales police cybercrime squad is investigating a “selfish and sickening fraud” after money was apparently exchanged for Covid-19 vaccination appointments at a major hospital in Sydney.
The Australian Associated Press understands people on the Chinese language social media app WeChat were asked to pay $300 to secure a quick turnaround booking for Pfizer at the Royal Prince Alfred hospital, in Sydney’s inner west.
The NSW police minister, David Elliott, on Thursday described it as “probably the most selfish and sickening fraud case that you could have occur during a pandemic”.
“A number of people have been attempting to gain profit using the anxieties of members of the public to get a vaccine earlier than is necessary,” Elliott told reporters.
European financial markets have fallen sharply on fears that central banks will start tapering their emergency Covid-19 support packages, despite slowing growth in the world economy.
In London, the FTSE 100 fell by more than 160 points, or about 2.3%, on Thursday morning to trade at about 7,000 as share prices tumbled across the continent after the US Federal Reserve said it could start cutting back support for the economy this year.
Stock markets in Germany, France and Italy were down by more than 2%, while the Ibex in Spain was 1.7% lower.
Summary
I’m going to hand over to my colleague Mattha Busby now but here’s a brief round-up of what’s been happening around the world over the past 24 hours:
- The effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 declines faster than that of the AstraZeneca jab, according to a study published on Thursday. “Two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech have greater initial effectiveness against new Covid-19 infections, but this declines faster compared with two doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca,” researchers at Oxford University said.
- A British man who refused to wear a mask was released today and will be deported from Singapore, the country’s prison department said. Benjamin Glynn, 40, was convicted on Wednesday and sentenced to six weeks in jail but was released owing to time served while remanded in detention, which included two weeks in a mental health institution, the Singapore Prison Service said.
- Fully vaccinated adults can harbour virus levels as high as unvaccinated people if infected with the Delta variant, according to a sweeping analysis of UK data, which supports the idea that hitting the threshold for herd immunity is unlikely.
- Japan has recorded a record number of coronavirus cases while critical care beds in Tokyo are nearing capacity less than a week before the city is due to host the Paralympic Games.
- The outbreak in the New Zealand city of Auckland has grown to 21, with models predicting as many as 100 people could already be infected. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said genome sequencing has linked the cluster to a returnee from Australia.
- US president Joe Biden says Covid-19 vaccine booster shots will be available to all Americans starting on 20 September as infections rise from the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
- The Australian state of NSW has reported another record number of cases, 681, but premier Gladys Berejiklian has nevertheless promised there are “exciting things to look forward to” when she introduces freedoms for vaccinated people once targets are met in coming weeks.
- Mexico has recorded a record 28,953 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 3,152,205. It also reported 940 more deaths, taking theofficial number of confirmed deaths to 250,469, although health officials have said the real number is likely to be significantly higher.
- Wealthy countries’ booster campaigns “leave poorer people to drown”, the World Health Organization said. Experts at the organisation insisted there was not enough scientific evidence that boosters were needed. Providing them while so many were still waiting to be immunised was immoral, they argued.
- The medical journal Nature echoed WHO calls for a temporary suspension of Covid boosters, saying the scientific case for their efficacy has not yet been proved. “So far, there is little evidence that boosters are needed to protect the fully vaccinated,” it said.
- The WHO said it was confident China would cooperate on investigating Covid’s origins, after one of its officials suggested patient zero could be lab worker – in a sudden escalation of pressure – and that Beijing’s resistance to transparency could mean “that there is a human error” to conceal.
- Almost 60% of hospitalised patients with Covid in Israel are fully vaccinated, Science Mag reports, despite 78% of those 12 and older in Israel being fully jabbed. The experience of Israel thus makes clear that so-called “breakthrough” cases are not such rare events as implied by the term.
- Ireland has administered at least one dose to 90% of adults, the head of the vaccine rollout has announced. He said 83% of adults were fully vaccinated after 6.46m vaccine doses were administered to date.
- People refusing to get Covid-19 vaccines in France are paying hundreds for fake health passes in an online black market that has flourished since the government imposed mandates for them to enter cafes, intercity trains and other public places.
- A lack of exercise is linked to an increased risk of severe Covid-19 and associated complications, according to a study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Researchers found that “consistently meeting physical activity guidelines was strongly associated with a reduced risk for severe Covid-19 outcomes among infected adults”.
- A high-ranking US Catholic cardinal who has Covid-19 and is a vaccine sceptic, is in serious condition and has been sedated, according to officials at a Wisconsin shrine that he founded. He spoke out against mandatory vaccinations in May 2020, saying some in society want to implant microchips in people.
Updated
France has added Algeria and Morocco to its list of countries deemed high-risk Covid-19 zones as it battles a fourth wave of infections.
The move, which will take effect on Saturday, means people arriving from the two African countries will have to undergo strict protocol measures, such as self-isolating.
French health authorities reported on Wednesday that the number of patients in intensive care units for Covid had risen above 2,000 for the first time since 14 June, as the Delta variant puts renewed strain on the hospital system.
Updated
A fantastic long read here from Anand Pandian, a US anthropologist who struck up an unlikely friendship with an anti-masker.
Pfizer jab's effectiveness declines quicker than AstraZeneca, research shows
The effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19 declines faster than that of the AstraZeneca jab, according to a study published on Thursday.
“Two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech have greater initial effectiveness against new Covid-19 infections, but this declines faster compared with two doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca,” researchers at Oxford University said.
The study, which has not been peer reviewed, is based on the results of a survey by Britain’s Office for National Statistics that carried out PCR tests from December last year to this month on randomly selected households.
It found that “the dynamics of immunity following second doses differed significantly” between Pfizer and AstraZeneca, according to the university’s Nuffield department of medicine.
Pfizer had “greater initial effectiveness” but then “faster declines in protection against high viral burden and symptomatic infection”, when looking at a period of several months after full vaccination, although rates remained low for both jabs.
“Results suggest that after four to five months effectiveness of these two vaccines would be similar,” the scientists added, while stressing that long-term effects need to be studied.
The study’s findings come as Israel is administering booster shots, after giving 58% of the population two shots of the Pfizer jab.
The United States is also set to offer booster vaccines to boost antibody levels following concerns over declining effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
The Oxford research also found that protection was higher among those who had already been infected with the virus.
The study examined two groups of more than 300,000 people over 18, first during the period dominated by the Alpha variant, which emerged in Kent, southeast England, and secondly from May 2021 onwards, when the Delta variant has been dominant.
It confirmed that vaccines are less effective against Delta, which was first seen in India.
The AstraZeneca vaccine is the most widely offered in the UK, while those under 40 are offered Pfizer or Moderna due to blood clotting concerns.
Updated
A record number of children and young people with a potentially life-threatening eating disorder are waiting for treatment in England, as psychiatrists warn soaring demand is overwhelming services.
NHS data analysed by the Royal College of Psychiatrists shows that while the number of those waiting for urgent and routine treatment has reached record levels during the pandemic, more children and young people are being treated than ever before.
Russia has reported 791 coronavirus-related deaths in the last 24 hours as well as 21,058 new cases, including 2,142 in Moscow.
Russia was hit by a surge in cases this summer that peaked in July and that authorities blamed on the Delta variant and slow uptake for domestically produced vaccines.
Updated
UK vaccine watchdog expert sceptical about booster jabs for all adults
The UK’s vaccine watchdog is to decide today which vulnerable groups will be given booster shots against coronavirus, but it is expected to rule out a general rollout of third jabs.
Prof Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, confirmed the group would be discussing the issue on Thursday morning.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Finn said: “We will be imminently deciding that there will be some people who will need a third dose, particularly people who we know are very unlikely to be well protected by those first two doses.”
Markets fell in Asia and Europe today following a second straight day of losses on Wall Street in response to US Federal Reserve minutes indicating it could begin withdrawing its huge financial support by the end of the year, reports Agence France-Presse.
Expectations of an end to the largesse that helped drive a global equity rally for more than a year added to the already sombre mood on trading floors caused by the fast-spreading Covid Delta variant, which is forcing a re-evaluation of the economic recovery as fresh curbs are put in place.
Concerns about China’s ongoing crackdown on tech companies also continue to play on sentiment, with gaming giant Tencent warning of further moves by Beijing to tighten its grip on the sector.
An update on the British man sentenced to six weeks in prison in Singapore for refusing to wear a mask:
Benjamin Glynn, 40, was released today and will be deported, the country’s prison department said.
He was convicted on Wednesday and sentenced to six weeks in jail but was released owing to time served while remanded in detention, which included two weeks in a mental health institution, the Singapore Prison Service said.
Updated
This is an interesting story by Edward Helmore about an Australian psychologist living in Canada who penned a book on pandemics just before Covid-19 hit.
Stephen Taylor’s book, The Psychology of Pandemics, was rejected by his publisher because “no one’s going to want to read it”.
As Hong Kong braces for more draconian Covid-19 travel restrictions to take effect from midnight Thursday, Australian actor Nicole Kidman received an exemption from the government to skip quarantine, media reported.
The exemption was given to allow her to film an Amazon television series called The Expats, online news site HK01 reported, a move that contrasts sharply with up to three weeks of hotel mandated quarantine that residents must do after entering the Chinese-ruled hub.
Reuters could not independently verify the information.
The Hong Kong government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 54-year-old Hollywood star was spotted shopping and filming in the former British colony after arriving from Sydney last week, according to HK01.
Australia is battling an outbreak of the fast-moving Delta strain and reported its biggest one-day rise in Covid-19 infections on Thursday.
Hong Kong has some of the most stringent coronavirus entry requirements globally, with arrivals from countries considered “high risk” mandated to undergo compulsory quarantine for 21 days in a designated quarantine hotel, even those who are vaccinated.
Updated
A school district in Texas, US, has announced an amendment to its dress code, reportedly requiring face masks for all members, ahead of the school’s reopening on Thursday.
An announcement issued on the website of the Paris Independent school district (PISD) on Tuesday pointed out Greg Abbott’s recent executive order doesn’t allow his office to “usurp the board of trustees’ executive power”.
Updated
Briton sentenced to six weeks in prison in Singapore for refusing to wear a mask
A British man was sentenced to six weeks’ jail in Singapore for not wearing a mask and harassing police, officials confirmed Thursday.
The city-state, which has had comparatively mild Covid-19 outbreaks, has taken a tough line against people breaking virus rules, and there have been several cases of foreigners being punished.
Benjamin Glynn was arrested after footage of him not wearing a mask on a train in May went viral.
The 40-year-old subsequently harassed police sent to arrest him, and refused to wear a face-covering during a court appearance last month.
According to reports, Glynn delivered a rant in court - in which he described the proceedings as “preposterous” and “disgusting” - and said masks were not effective in preventing the spread of Covid-19.
This prompted the judge to order a psychiatric assessment, but Glynn was deemed fit enough for the case to continue.
On Wednesday, he was convicted for breaching Covid-19 rules, his behaviour towards police, and causing a public nuisance.
A court official confirmed the jail term to AFP on Thursday, saying it was backdated to July 19 - the date when Glynn was first remanded.
As he had already served two-thirds of his sentence on remand, Glynn was freed from prison Wednesday and will be deported, according to local newspaper the Straits Times.
Convicts in Singapore can be freed for good behaviour after serving two-thirds of a jail term.
Glynn had worked for a Singapore branch of a British recruitment company since January 2017, reports said.
He was arrested weeks before he was due to return to Britain for a new job.
In May, nine Britons were banned from working in Singapore after breaking coronavirus rules while partying on a yacht in Santa hats.
In June last year, four British men were similarly banned after going on a pub crawl in a breach of curbs.
Updated
When February’s military takeover of Myanmar led to the collapse of the central health care system, independent ethnic organisations that had operated for decades on the Southeast Asian country’s borders stepped in. They provided basic medical services, treated Covid-19-patients and occasionally even tended to injuries from armed skirmishes.
But a fierce new wave of coronavirus cases, and myriad other challenges — closed borders, shrinking support from international donors, and a crackdown on aid by the military, which has been accused of hoarding medical supplies for its own use — are stretching their abilities to the limit.
“There is no transportation available to get proper medicine and food supplies,” a doctor working at a makeshift clinic in the jungle of eastern Myanmar told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “There are not enough oxygen cylinders in our area and clinic. Because of heavy rain, there is also difficulty to even get clean water.”
As of Wednesday, Myanmar had more than 363,000 cases of Covid-19, according to state-owned news media. That number is thought to be a vast undercount, as testing in the country of about 55 million people is limited. Cases first spiked in June, and many hospitals have been forced to turn away patients because of staffing shortages. Oxygen and medical supplies have been scarce, with the military accused of hoarding supplies for its own hospitals.
The per capita death rate in Myanmar was the worst in Southeast Asia during one week of July, when bodies were lined up outside overwhelmed crematoriums. The number of deaths is also likely an undercount, given that only those who die at medical facilities are included in the official figures.
South Korea reported more than 2,000 new coronavirus cases for the second time as it struggles to subdue a wave of outbreaks during the summer holidays, driven by the more contagious Delta variant.
South Korea has managed to tackle outbreaks since its epidemic began early last year thanks to intensive testing and tracing but it is now facing persistent spikes in infections and vaccine shortages, Reuters reports.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 2,152 cases for Wednesday, the second highest since the pandemic began, after the daily tally topped 2,200 for the first time last week. Total infections rose to 230,808, with 2,191 deaths.
The latest infections emerged around the capital, Seoul, and neighbouring regions but have spread nationwide as people travel for vacations.
More than 35% of the 2,114 domestically transmitted cases were in areas outside the capital, up from some 20% a month ago, KDCA data showed.
The fourth Covid-19 wave has shown few signs of abating even after the toughest Level 4 distancing rules, which include a ban on gatherings of more than two people after 6 p.m., in the greater Seoul area for six weeks.
Most other regions are under Level 3 curbs, which include a ban on gatherings of more than four people at any time and a 10 p.m. curfew for cafes and restaurants.
The government is expected to extend the curbs on Friday, possibly for the four weeks leading up to the Korean thanksgiving holiday of Chuseok next month, when normally tens of millions of people travel across the country.
A shortage of vaccines has meant only 21.1% of the 52 million population is fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, while about 47% have had at least one dose, according to the KDCA.
South Korea aims to fully immunise some 70% of the population by October, though some experts have questioned the feasibility of that goal given vaccine shipment delays.
Jabbed adults infected with Delta ‘can match virus levels of unvaccinated’
Fully vaccinated adults can harbour virus levels as high as unvaccinated people if infected with the Delta variant, according to a sweeping analysis of UK data, which supports the idea that hitting the threshold for herd immunity is unlikely.
There is abundant evidence that Covid vaccines in the UK continue to offer significant protection against hospitalisations and death. But this new analysis shows that although being fully vaccinated means the risk of getting infected is lower, once infected by Delta a person can carry similar virus levels as unvaccinated people.
New Zealand’s coronavirus cases jumped on Thursday, as questions grew about the government’s response to the pandemic given the slowest vaccination rate among developed countries and the economic pressures of prolonged isolation.
Eleven new cases were reported on Thursday, taking the total to 21 in the latest outbreak that ended the country’s six-month virus-free run, Reuters reports.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, however, that the virus has not been in the community for long as authorities had linked its origin to a recent returnee from Sydney on 7 August.
She said at a news conference:
This is a significant development. It means now we can be fairly certain how and when the virus entered the country. And the period in which cases were in the community were relatively short.
New Zealanders had been living without curbs until Ardern ordered a snap 3-day nationwide lockdown on Tuesday after a new case was found in the largest city Auckland, the first in the country since February.
Ardern, who shut the country’s borders in March 2020, had announced plans for a gradual reopening this month amid pressure from businesses and public sectors facing a worker shortage that policymakers fear will fuel inflation.
But the new cases, though still relatively small in number, may delay those plans and have caused significant concerns in the nation that has struggled to get its population vaccinated.
Only about 23% of its 5 million people have been fully vaccinated so far, the lowest rate among the 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The Philippines is allotting 45.3 billion pesos ($899 million) for COVID-19 booster shots under its 2022 budget, an official said, even as health authorities have yet to conclude there is a need for a third dose.
“We have a budget entry for a booster shot for all Filipinos,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque told a regular news conference.
It is unclear how many doses of vaccine the budget can cover, but the Philippines has approved the emergency use of eight brands, including those of Pfizer and partner BioNTech and Moderna, which the United States will start offering as boosters in September.
In recent weeks, Israel, France and Germany have decided to offer booster shots to older adults and people with weak immune systems.
The Philippines, which is battling one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in Asia, has fully vaccinated nearly 13 million people, or 11.7% of the total population of 110 million.
Summary
That’s it from me, Helen Livingstone, I’m handing over to my UK colleague Robyn Vinter.
Here’s a brief round-up of what’s been happening around the world over the past 24 hours:
- Japan has recorded a record number of coronavirus cases while critical care beds in Tokyo are nearing capacity less than a week before the city is due to host the Paralympic Games.
- The outbreak in the New Zealand city of Auckland has grown to 21, with models predicting as many as 100 people could already be infected. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said genome sequencing has linked the cluster to a returnee from Australia.
- US president Joe Biden says Covid-19 vaccine booster shots will be available to all Americans starting on 20 September as infections rise from the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
- The Australian state of NSW has reported another record number of cases, 681, but premier Gladys Berejiklian has nevertheless promised there are “exciting things to look forward to” when she introduces freedoms for vaccinated people once targets are met in coming weeks.
- Mexico has recorded a record 28,953 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 3,152,205. It also reported 940 more deaths and the total confirmed death toll now stands at 250,469 although health officials have said the real number is likely significantly higher.
- Wealthy countries’ booster campaigns “leave poorer people to drown”, the World Health Organization said. Experts at the organisation insisted there was not enough scientific evidence that boosters were needed. Providing them while so many were still waiting to be immunised was immoral, they argued.
- The medical journal Nature echoed WHO calls for a temporary suspension of Covid boosters, saying the scientific case for their efficacy has not yet been proved. “So far, there is little evidence that boosters are needed to protect the fully vaccinated,” it said.
- The WHO said it was confident China would cooperate on investigating Covid’s origins, after one of its officials suggested patient zero could be lab worker – in a sudden escalation of pressure – and that their resistance to transparency could mean “that there is a human error” to conceal.
- Almost 60% of hospitalised patients with Covid in Israel are fully vaccinated - Science Mag reports, despite 78% of those 12 and older in Israel being fully jabbed. The experience of Israel thus makes clear that so-called “breakthrough” cases are not such rare events as implied by the term.
- Ireland has administered at least one dose to 90% of adults, the head of the vaccine rollout has announced. He said 83% of adults were fully vaccinated after 6.46m vaccine doses were administered to date.
- People refusing to get Covid-19 vaccines in France are paying hundreds for fake health passes in an online black market that has flourished since the government imposed mandates for them to enter cafes, intercity trains and other public places.
- A lack of exercise is linked to an increased risk of severe Covid-19 and associated complications, according to a study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Researchers found that, “consistently meeting physical activity guidelines was strongly associated with a reduced risk for severe Covid-19 outcomes among infected adults”.
- A high-ranking US Catholic cardinal who has Covid-19 and is a vaccine sceptic, is in serious condition and has been sedated, according to officials at a Wisconsin shrine that he founded. He spoke out against mandatory vaccinations in May 2020, saying some in society want to implant microchips in people.
Mexico has posted a record 28,953 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, Reuters reports, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 3,152,205, health ministry data showed.
The figure is the highest daily total since the pandemic began, excluding statistical blips that heath authorities said were caused by one-off adjustments to back data.
Mexico also reported 940 more deaths and the total confirmed death toll now stands at 250,469 although health officials have said the real number is likely significantly higher.
The figures came as the country’s foreign minister, Marcelo Ebrard, announced that Mexico was set to receive the first batch of 1.75 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine from the United States at the weekend, shortly after Mexico authorised its emergency use.
The Mexican government last week said that US vice president Kamala Harris had promised to send 3.5 million Moderna and 5 million AstraZeneca vaccines. Mexican health regulator Cofepris on Wednesday said it had authorized the two-shot vaccine from Moderna Inc for emergency use.
Ebrard wrote on Twitter that the doses would arrive at the weekend and “In a month, the second dose will arrive (another 1,750,000). Our sincere gratitude!”
Mexico has vaccinated at least 42% of its population of 126 million people with a first dose, official data shows. But the Delta variant is sweeping through the country and vaccine hesitancy is rising in younger people
Elsewhere in Australia, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, has sought to reassure Melburnians the state’s Covid response is working after 57 new cases of Covid-19 were reported, the highest daily figure since last year’s deadly second wave.
As Melbourne marked its 200th day in lockdown since the start of the pandemic, Thursday’s 57 cases were the highest figure since the 73 infections recorded on 9 September last year.
Andrews said he knew 57 seemed like a “big number” but insisted Melbourne’s lockdown was working. “When the vast majority of those have been in isolation for their infectious period, that’s exactly what we want,” he said.
More on that from our reporter Luke Henriques-Gomes:
Japan has recorded a record number of coronavirus cases while critical care beds in Tokyo are nearing capacity less than a week before the city is due to host the Paralympic Games, our correspondent Justin McCurry reports.
The latest wave of Covid-19 infections has spread well beyond Tokyo, the centre of previous outbreaks, with Osaka, neighbouring Hyogo and other prefectures all reporting record caseloads on Wednesday.
Tokyo recorded 5,386 cases the same day – slightly lower than its all-time high of 5,773 last Friday – but medical experts said low rates of testing meant the actual number could be much higher.
While government officials and scientists continue to disagree on whether the Olympics contributed to the latest surge, preparations for the Paralympics are continuing amid a state of emergency in Tokyo that will still be in place after the games have ended.
Here’s the full report:
The Australian state of New South Wales has posted another record number of cases and one death, as it struggles to contain its Delta outbreak, Guardian Australia’s Elias Visontay reports.
But despite announcing 681 new cases, the NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, told locked-down residents there were “exciting things to look forward to” when she introduces freedoms for vaccinated people once targets are met in coming weeks.
She also announced that the lockdown for all of regional NSW would be extended until at least 28 August, noting case numbers across the state “are not going where we want them to go”.
Here’s more from Elias:
The coronavirus cluster in the New Zealand city of Auckland has grown to 21, our correspondent Eva Corlett reports, with a strong link discovered to a case at the border.
The country was plunged into a country-wide lockdown on Wednesday, its first in over a year, after a 58-year-old man with no known link to the border was diagnosed with the virus on Tuesday.
Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said genome sequencing has now linked the cluster to a returnee from Australia. “Based on timelines, there are minimal, possibly only one, or maybe two, missing links between this returnee and cases in our current outbreak,” Ardern said.
Here’s more on that:
Welcome
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Helen Livingstone.
Japan has recorded a record number of coronavirus cases while critical care beds in Tokyo are nearing capacity less than a week before the city is due to host the Paralympic Games.
The outbreak in the New Zealand city of Auckland has grown to 21, with models predicting as many as 100 people could already be infected. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern said genome sequencing has linked the cluster to a returnee from Australia.
US president Joe Biden says Covid-19 vaccine booster shots will be available to all Americans starting on 20 September as infections rise from the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
Here’s a round-up of what’s been happening over the past 24 hours
- Mexico has recorded a record 28,953 new confirmed cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 3,152,205. It also reported 940 more deaths and the total confirmed death toll now stands at 250,469 although health officials have said the real number is likely significantly higher.
- Wealthy countries’ booster campaigns “leave poorer people to drown”, the World Health Organization said. Experts at the organisation insisted there was not enough scientific evidence that boosters were needed. Providing them while so many were still waiting to be immunised was immoral, they argued.
- The medical journal Nature echoed WHO calls for a temporary suspension of Covid boosters, saying the scientific case for their efficacy has not yet been proved. “So far, there is little evidence that boosters are needed to protect the fully vaccinated,” it said.
- The WHO said it was confident China would cooperate on investigating Covid’s origins, after one of its officials suggested patient zero could be lab worker – in a sudden escalation of pressure – and that their resistance to transparency could mean “that there is a human error” to conceal.
- China’s ambassador to Denmark said groundless accusations were being levelled against China amid suggestions that Covid may have originated from a laboratory leak or the collection of bat coronavirus samples.
- Almost 60% of hospitalised patients with Covid in Israel are fully vaccinated - Science Mag reports, despite 78% of those 12 and older in Israel being fully jabbed. The experience of Israel thus makes clear that so-called “breakthrough” cases are not such rare events as implied by the term.
- Ireland has administered at least one dose to 90% of adults, the head of the vaccine rollout has announced. He said 83% of adults were fully vaccinated after 6.46m vaccine doses were administered to date.
- People refusing to get Covid-19 vaccines in France are paying hundreds for fake health passes in an online black market that has flourished since the government imposed mandates for them to enter cafes, intercity trains and other public places.
- A lack of exercise is linked to an increased risk of severe Covid-19 and associated complications, according to a study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Researchers found that, “consistently meeting physical activity guidelines was strongly associated with a reduced risk for severe Covid-19 outcomes among infected adults”.
- A high-ranking US Catholic cardinal who has Covid-19 and is a vaccine sceptic, is in serious condition and has been sedated, according to officials at a Wisconsin shrine that he founded. He spoke out against mandatory vaccinations in May 2020, saying some in society want to implant microchips in people.
