A summary of today's developments
- The World Health Organization director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reiterated that the data on the benefits and safety of a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot is inconclusive – yet richer states continue to move towards the policy. Meanwhile, Pfizer and BioNTech said they have initiated submission for a full US approval of a booster dose of their vaccine.
- China criticised the US “politicisation” of efforts to trace the origin of the coronavirus and restated dubious demands for a US military laboratory to be investigated, amid the release of an “inconclusive” American intelligence community report on the virus’ origins.
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The scientists dispatched to China by the WHO to discover Covid’s origins said that the window of opportunity for solving the mystery is “closing fast”. They appeared to be attempting to reframe their original finding, which said a lab leak was “extremely unlikely”, after details increasingly emerge on how terms were agreed with Chinese officials.
- Military troops must immediately begin to get vaccinated against Covid after Pfizer’s jab received full approval, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said as more than 800,000 service members out of 2.1 million, including reserves, remain unvaccinated.
- Brazil announced it will give Covid booster shots to immunosuppressed or vulnerable people, and citizens over the age of 80, after it emerged yesterday it had leaked its supply contract with Pfizer – showing it provided the pharma giant with indemnity from possible citizen lawsuits over potential adverse events after it provided jabs at cheaper prices.
- Five people in Auckland, New Zealand, who received Covid-19 jabs last month may have got a dose of saline solution instead but health officials did not tell them. A minister said the delay – which leaves 732 people awaiting a letter tomorrow on next steps – was “regrettable”.
- Taiwan reported zero community cases of Covid-19 for the first time since its biggest outbreak began in May, killing more than 800 people. Residents had lived a largely normal life for most of 2020 and early 2021, albeit with closed borders.
- The emergence of the Delta variant means that vaccination may not prove to be the magic bullet that many governments hoped for, a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit said. It called on political leaders to rethink their Covid strategy to adapt it for the long term.
We’re now closing this blog. Thanks for reading. You can read all our latest coronavirus coverage here. Take care!
The Australian coalition government is facing calls from within its ranks to extend a Covid vaccine mandate for workers in residential aged care to all aged care and disability care workers.
Warren Entsch, the Liberal MP for Leichhardt, raised the issue with the health minister, Greg Hunt, this week, saying the mandate for the residential aged care workforce did not go far enough.
Katie Allen, a doctor before entering federal parliament, also backed the call for the government to consider extending the mandate to home care workers to protect the most vulnerable.
Data on benefits and safety of booster shot 'not conclusive', says WHO chief
The World Health Organization director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has again said that the data on the benefits and safety of a Covid-19 vaccine booster shot is inconclusive – but richer states continue to move towards the policy.
On the boosters, first of all, its not conclusive, in terms of its benefits; and also, we don’t know, if its safe. The second problem is that when some countries can afford to have the booster and others are not even vaccinating the first and second round, it’s a moral issue.
Its like saying okay, you have a life jacket and you’re adding another one, while others don’t have a single lifejacket. But its not just a moral issue, with a big part of the population unvaccinated – especially in low- and middle-income countries, we are giving opportunity to the virus to circulate, meaning new variants will emerge.
Its technically wrong and morally wrong; and that’s why we had this two months moratorium, so that countries could refrain from using boosters, so that other countries who don’t have vaccines at hand ... could have access to vaccines. We’re in the same boat, and treating one part won’t help us recover soon from the pandemic. Its in the interests of all of us to show real solidarity.
His latest intervention leads one to wonder on what basis countries have approved booster shot campaigns.
Here’s the whole press conference.
Media briefing on #COVID19 with @DrTedros https://t.co/w7oQ9TZdct
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) August 25, 2021
Updated
With most UK formal Covid restrictions all but melted away, freedom prevails, says Guardian columnist Owen Jones. Urm, sort of, he writes, calling for a true workers democracy.
Back to the workplace, Tory ministers make demands of our newly liberated workforce: the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, warns young workers that continuing to work from home may risk their careers. Though markedly softer in tone than last summer – when ministers demanded, through the press, to “Go back to work or risk losing your job” – the message is clear, at least in England: pubs and bars may be thronged again, but the ancien regime of work must be restored in full.
The case for workers’ democracy is overwhelming: for health, wellbeing, the quality of services and economic performance. The lot of millions of workers is subordinated to the whims of unaccountable bosses. If any good is to come from Britain’s nightmarish experience with the pandemic, it should be to follow the example of the postwar generation and reject the old ways. Here is a start.
Updated
Here’s more from the World Health Organization team warning that further delay to studies on Covid’s origins make crucial biological inquiry difficult. Earlier they said the window of opportunity for solving the mystery is “closing fast”.
But, writing in the journal Nature, they also appear to be attempting to reframe their original finding, which said a lab leak was “extremely unlikely”, after terms were agreed with Chinese officials.
It is also worth mentioning that one of the co-authors is Peter Daszak, who became shrouded in controversy after it emerged his charity had part-funded the Wuhan lab at the centre of scrutiny and had helped coordinate a Lancet letter at the onset of the pandemic which dismissed the leak theory as a conspiracy.
Here are some extracts of the fascinating, lengthy piece:
So far, our mission has been guided by terms of reference agreed between the WHO and China in 2020, before our involvement1. These terms tasked us with making a detailed reconstruction of the early phase of the pandemic, beginning in Wuhan, China, where the first known cases were reported. Our mandate was to conduct a collaborative study with leading scientists in China to review data they had generated on the basis of initial questions from the WHO. We refined the generic list of questions described in the mandate into a detailed workplan described in the mission report.
The possibility of a laboratory origin for the virus’s introduction into the local human population — what has come to be called the lab-leak hypothesis — was not part of the WHO’s original terms of reference for the team ... We found the laboratory origin hypothesis too important to ignore, so brought it into the discussions with our Chinese counterparts. And we included it as one of the hypotheses for SARS-CoV-2 origin in our report.
We had limited time on the ground in Wuhan and a limited mandate. So we prioritized understanding the role of labs in the early days of the epidemic, the overall lab biosafety procedures and potential staff illness or absenteeism owing to respiratory disease in the late part of 2019. We spoke to the leadership and staff at the three Wuhan labs handling coronaviruses: the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Wuhan, and the Hubei provincial CDC. We reviewed published work from these labs to assess their scientific history of working with coronaviruses related to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
The Chinese team was and still is reluctant to share raw data (for instance, on the 174 cases identified in December 2019), citing concerns over patient confidentiality. Access to data on these cases was not specified in the mandate, although the WHO had demanded it during the investigation, and has done so since. The legal and possible other barriers could not be addressed in the short time frame of our visit. Also, by then, it was clear that the 174 cases were not likely to be the earliest ones, so we considered them less urgent for understanding origins. It was therefore agreed that a second phase of studies would address these concerns and review these data.
As laid out in our terms of reference, this initial study was not expected to provide definitive answers to the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Rather, phase 1 was always intended to form the foundation of a longer process of scientific investigation that could last for months or years. Therefore, the report put forward recommendations for phase 2 studies that would follow the evidence and trace back further along the most likely pathways. As a joint WHO-China study report, these recommendations were agreed on by members of both the international and the Chinese team. The report also stated that this assessment could be revised if new evidence became available.
Our critics have also suggested that the report dismisses the possibility of a lab leak. A laboratory origin hypothesis is presented in the pathway model in figure 5 on page 119 of the report; we explicitly state in the report that it is possible. We held frank discussions with key scientists in the relevant Wuhan institutions — a line of inquiry that exceeded our original mandate. When we reviewed the responses to our questions on this issue, and all other available data, we found no evidence for leads to follow up; we reported this fact. In our report, we state that if evidence supporting any of the hypotheses becomes known following publication, phase 2 studies should carefully examine this. For instance, we described that there was evidence of the presence of live animals in the market at the end of December 2019, but that the data presented to the team did not show definitive evidence of live mammals. This evidence came to light after publication (as we discuss in more detail later in this article).
Crucially, the window is rapidly closing on the biological feasibility of conducting the critical trace-back of people and animals inside and outside China. SARS-CoV-2 antibodies wane, so collecting further samples and testing people who might have been exposed before December 2019 will yield diminishing returns. Chinese wildlife farms employ millions of people (14 million, according to a 2016 census) and supplied live mammals to cities across China, including Wuhan. In response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, many of these farms are now closed and the animals have been culled, making any evidence of early coronavirus spillover increasingly difficult to find.
Therefore, we call on the scientific community and country leaders to join forces to expedite the phase 2 studies detailed here, while there is still time.
Updated
Delta Airlines will impose a $200 monthly fee on employees unvaccinated against Covid-19, the airline has announced.
In a memo sent to employees, Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said those enrolled in the company’s account-based healthcare plan would be subject to the monthly surcharge starting 1 November if they were unvaccinated.
“The average hospital stay for Covid-19 has cost Delta $50,000 per person. This surcharge will be necessary to address the financial risk the decision to not vaccinate is creating for our company,” Bastian wrote.
Read more here:
Updated
Pfizer seeks US approval for booster dose
Pfizer and BioNTech have said they have initiated submission for a full approval of a booster dose of their vaccine.
The move potentially paves the way for a third dose that can be offered to people with compromised immune systems.
Today marks another milestone for Pfizer and @BioNTech_Group as we initiated submission for U.S. FDA approval of a sBLA (supplemental Biologics License Application) for a booster, or a third dose, of our COVID-19 vaccine, in individuals aged 16 and older.
— Pfizer Inc. (@pfizer) August 25, 2021
Reuters provides this context:
US officials have said that vaccine booster shots will be made widely available to Americans starting 20 September.
Earlier this week, US regulators granted full approval to the two-dose vaccine based on updated data from the companies’ clinical trial and manufacturing review.
A third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is not currently authorised for broad use in the US. However, under the amended emergency use authorisation, a third dose was authorised for administration to individuals at least 12 years of age who were immunocompromised.
Updated
The unequal distribution of vaccines is the weak point in efforts to combat the disease in the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization has said.
“Vaccine inequity remains the Achilles’ heel of our response,” PAHO Director Dr. Carissa Etienne said during the organization’s weekly virtual briefing.
Production delays mean many countries are still waiting to receive doses purchased months ago, she said, and pharmaceutical companies are prioritizing price and country of origin, rather than need, when making distribution decisions.
You can watch the full briefing here:
🚨🔊#PAHO Press Briefing on #COVID19🦠in the Americas 🌎 August 25, 2021 https://t.co/Jhc73l24Tp
— PAHO/WHO (@pahowho) August 25, 2021
This limited production and unequal distribution of vaccines 💉 in the face of staggering demand hinder our COVID response and they put 👉🏽 public health in our countries at very high risk 🚨@DirOPSPAHO #COVID19
— PAHO/WHO (@pahowho) August 25, 2021
France has reported another 93 deaths from Covid in its hospitals, taking the country’s death toll from the virus to 87,236.
It also reported that 2,239 Covid patients are being treated in intensive care, an increase of 18 on Tuesday.
France/#covid19fr Chiffres hospitaliers au 25 août 2021 :
— Pierre Beyssac (@pbeyssac) August 25, 2021
+93 décès (total 87236) hors EHPAD/ESMS
+105 hospitalisations, 883 entrées (total 11171)
+18 réanimations, 182 entrées (total 2239)
+682 retours domicile (total 404823) pic.twitter.com/ilWJCOUNHX
Updated
The international scientists dispatched to China by the World Health Organization to discover the origins of Covid-19, say the search has stalled and that the window of opportunity for solving the mystery is “closing fast”, AP reports.
In a commentary published in the journal Nature, the experts said the origins investigation was at “a critical juncture” that required urgent collaboration but had instead come to a standstill.
They noted among other things that Chinese officials are still reluctant to share some raw data, citing concerns over patient confidentiality.
Earlier this year, WHO sent a team of experts to Wuhan, where the first human cases were detected.
In their analysis, published in March, the WHO team concluded the virus probably jumped to humans from animals, and they described the possibility of a laboratory leak as “extremely unlikely”.
But the WHO experts said their report was intended only as a first step and added: “The window of opportunity for conducting this crucial inquiry is closing fast: any delay will render some of the studies biologically impossible.”
For example, they said, “antibodies wane, so collecting further samples and testing people who might have been exposed before December 2019 will yield diminishing returns”.
Marion Koopmans and her WHO-recruited colleagues listed a number of priorities for further research, including conducting wider antibody surveys that may identify places where Covid was spreading undetected, both in China and beyond, testing wild bats and farm-raised animals as potential reservoirs of the virus, and investigating any credible new leads.
A US intelligence review on whether the escape from a Chinese lab proved inconclusive.
Updated
Vaccine diplomacy...
The Tunisian Presidency expresses its sincerest gratitude and appreciation to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia following the delivery of 600k doses of #COVID19 vaccines. #TnPR
— Tunisian Presidency - الرئاسة التونسية (@TnPresidency) August 25, 2021
Switzerland has announced that it has signed a contract with Pfizer for 7m Covid vaccine doses, with an eye towards providing future booster shots, AFP reports.
The contract for the next two years with the US pharma giant also contains the option for an additional 7m doses each year after that, the government said in a statement.
The country of 8.6 million people already has contracts for 6m Pfizer/BioNTech doses and 13.5m Moderna doses this year.
The statement said the latest contract meant the government had “reserved sufficient vaccines from both vaccine manufacturers to be able to offer booster shots to the public if necessary”.
The announcement came a day after the World Health Organization hit out at the “shocking disparity” in coronavirus vaccines, as wealthy countries buy up doses for third shots while millions in poorer nations have yet to have access to a first.
Switzerland also has contracts for millions of vaccine doses made by AstraZeneca, Curevac and Novavax, but currently only the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna jabs are in use in the country.
Like a number of other European countries, Switzerland is in the throes of a fourth wave of Covid infections.
The Swiss health minister, Alain Berset, told reporters on Wednesday that the number of hospitalisations was soaring, but said the situation was under control, for now.
Updated
A rundown South African railway station has been converted into an unlikely vaccination site where a shiny white train brings jabs to remote areas and boost sluggish uptake, AFP reports.
One by one, people waiting in plastic chairs spaced out across a platform in the town of Springs, 50km (30 miles) east of Johannesburg, were called to board a vaccine centre on rails - the “Transvaco”.
“We want to try and vaccinate as many people as possible in a short space of time … [and] bring vaccines closer to rural areas,” the train’s manager, Paballo Mokwana, told AFP on Wednesday.
Funded by the state logistics firm Transnet, the train has the capacity to jab 600 people a day in a specially refurbished carriage lined with vaccination cubicles.
Its eight other carriages are used for accommodation, storage, staff dining, electricity generation and other essentials.
After a two-week stint in Springs, the train will set off next month for a three-month swing through impoverished Eastern Cape province.
But less than 100 people have showed up each day since the Transvaco opened its doors on Monday.
The low turnout is largely blamed on lack of awareness and vaccine hesitancy hindering inoculation in Africa’s worst virus-hit country.
Uptake, slightly boosted since the eligible age was lowered from 34 to 18 last week, has remained generally low.
“I’m still too scared,” said train station worker Zacharia Matuludi, 28, spraying incomers with hand sanitiser.
“The chemicals … I don’t know how my body will respond to them.”
Updated
Warning return to large gatherings in UK will lead to 'significant surge' in cases as 35,847 new infections reported
The UK government has said a further 149 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19. As of 9am today, there had been a further 35,847 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, it added.
Government data up to yesterday shows that of the 89,865,264 Covid jabs given in the UK, 47,792,552 were first doses, a rise of 55,410 on the previous day
, and the rest were second doses, an increase of 130,676, PA reports.
The rise in deaths brought the UK Covid-related death total to 132,003. 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.
Of the 9,543 deaths recorded in the week until 6 August, 502 had Covid mentioned on the death certificate – though this does not necessarily indicate causality. However, there have been warnings that the proportion of under-50’s dying after testing positive for Covid has been rising slightly, to 7%.
The statistics come as an expert advising the government said a return to large gatherings would lead to a “significant surge” in cases.
Prof Ravindra Gupta told BBC Radio Four’s World at One:
We know that Delta is far more infectious, it ramps up very quickly. We know the lateral flow devices are not perfect. So we just have to be realistic and say that this is going to lead to a significant surge in infections.”
The member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), who said he was speaking in a personal capacity, noted that some of the government’s pilot events earlier in the year - which were concluded to have shown “no substantial outbreaks” – had taken place when the Delta variant was not dominant and community transmission was relatively low.
I think if you did a large event now, and did the same study, you may find something different because, of course, the Delta variant is dominant at the moment.
Updated
With plans for the UK’s Covid vaccine booster programme this autumn soon to be revealed, we take a look at what we do – and don’t – know about waning immunity after vaccination.
Moderna has completed its application for a full regulatory approval of its Covid-19 vaccine in people aged 18and above, the company has said.
Reuters reports that US health officials expect full approval for Covid-19 vaccines to help win over vaccine sceptics and prompt more state and local governments, as well as private employers to impose jab mandates.
But experts said the fast-tracked general authorisation of the Pfizer jab this week was made behind closed doors based on six months’ worth of data from 12,000 people – making it a rare case for a mass use vaccine that could “set a precedent of lowered standards for future vaccine approvals”.
Pfizer/BioNTech’s jab is developed with the same mRNA technology as Moderna’s, which prompt the human body to make a protein that is part of the Covid pathogen, triggering an immune response.
Reuters reports Moderna’s completed submission includes data from a late-stage study that showed 93% vaccine efficacy through six months after administration of the second dose, the company said in a statement.
As part of the submission, Moderna has requested a priority review designation for its vaccine, currently available in the US for people aged 18 and older under an emergency use authorisation (EUA) granted by the Food and Drug Administration in December.
So far, the company has released more than 300m doses of the vaccine to the US government but it is unclear how many have been administered.
The British Medical Journal this week said Pfizer/BioNTech posted updated results for their ongoing phase 3 trial on 28 July, but without any new data and containing an identical topline efficacy result as the previous preprint – following its admission of significantly waning efficacy that it used to justify calls for booster shots.
There are also concerns that the pharmaceutical companies allowed all trial participants to be formally de-anonymised to researchers starting last December, and placebo recipients to get vaccinated, after it received emergency approval.
By 13 March, 93% of trial participants had been unblinded, officially entering “open-label follow-up” and therefore the company data preprint was based on the 7% of trial participants who remained anonymous at six months.
Updated
Coronavirus was “weaponised” by domestic abusers in England and Wales during the pandemic and police forces should remain alert to “Covid blaming” as an excuse or defence by suspects, a study has found.
The Domestic Homicide Project, established by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing, revealed that domestic homicides had not increased dramatically during the pandemic but still remained at about three a week, with 163 recorded in the 12 months to March. This was similar to the previous year’s figure of 152 and in line with the 15-year average.
The project also found 38 suspected suicides of victims with a known history of domestic abuse, an average of three a month, although this figure could not be compared with previous years as it was the first time the data had been recorded.
Private companies that sell Covid-19 tests to holidaymakers have been told to “get on the right side of the law” by the competition regulator, after widespread allegations of poor service triggered a government crackdown.
Days after the health secretary, Sajid Javid, said “cowboy” PCR test firms could be removed from the government’s list of approved providers, the Competition and Markets Authority issued a separate warning.
It said rogue companies could face enforcement action from the CMA or from National Trading Standards if they are found to be breaking consumer law by misleading customers or treating them unfairly.
It follows multiple allegations that private providers, which are thought to have made £500m since the return of international leisure travel in mid-May, failed to deliver tests, send results and process refunds.
Updated
Work 'is a verb, not a place', says Mr Kiplings cakes owner as it gives office workers remote freedom
The owner of Mr Kipling cakes has told its 800 office staff they can decide where they wish to work.
Premier Foods said they could work “wherever they work best” from this month, though the 4,000 factory staff producing the treats will still have to continue attending in person.
The BBC reports the FTSE 250 company, which also owns brands Bisto, Ambrosia, Oxo and Loyd Grossman, said its offices in St Albans, Manchester, Lutterworth, Southampton and High Wycombe would not be “somewhere colleagues have to be for the sake of showing their face”.
David Wilkinson, group HR director, told the broadcaster:
This isn’t about getting rid of the office altogether, it’s about shifting our mindset on what it means to be flexible. Work is a verb, not a place, and whether it’s for a team meeting or just personal preference, our office remains open for anyone who wants to use it.
Updated
In Scotland, there has been a steep rise in recorded Covid cases, with a record 5262 positive tests over the past 24 hours.
This comes as the latest National records of Scotland data showed 41 deaths registered over the last week to August 22 where coronavirus was mentioned on the death certificate.
This was a record high in cases for the second day running, as deputy first minister John Swinney suggested that the surge in cases was related to pupils returning to school after the summer holidays.
He said that data showed around a third of new cases were in the under-19s age group, where around 40% of 16 and 17 year olds have had their first vaccine dose.
Speaking on the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme, Swinney said:
Cases have risen very significantly within Scotland and we are looking closely at why that is the case. Undoubtedly, the gathering together in schools will have fuelled that to some extent, and you can see that in the proportion of younger people who are testing positive.
1/ Another sharp rise in number of cases today (tho % positivity is lower than y’day, reflecting more tests). Vaccines still protecting against serious illness, but we all need to take care and act in a way that minimises risk of getting/spreading the virus. https://t.co/xhWFqmO494
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) August 25, 2021
US troops must swiftly get jabs, says defence secretary, with more than a third still unvaccinated
Military troops must immediately begin to get vaccinated against Covid after Pfizer’s jab received full approval, the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said in a memo as he ordered service leaders to “impose ambitious timelines for implementation”.
More than 800,000 service members out of 2.1 million, including reserves, have yet to get inoculated, according to Pentagon data. The memo, which was obtained by the Associated Press, does not dictate a specific timeline for completing the vaccinations.
“To defend this nation, we need a healthy and ready force,” Austin said in the memo. “After careful consultation with medical experts and military leadership, and with the support of the president, I have determined that mandatory vaccination against coronavirus disease … is necessary to protect the force and defend the American people.”
Troops will be able to get their Pfizer shots at their bases and from their commands around the world, the AP reports. The Pentagon has said it has enough vaccine supply to meet demand.
Members of the US military are already required to get as many as 17 different vaccines, depending on where they are deployed. The requirements – which include shots for smallpox, hepatitis, polio and the flu – also provide for a number of temporary and permanent exemptions for either medical or administrative reasons, the AP reports.
Austin in the memo noted that the new requirement will allow for exemptions that are consistent with the current policies for all the other vaccines. Permanent exemptions include serious medical reactions to the vaccine, immune deficiencies such as HIV infection, and “evidence of existing immunity” by a serologic antibody test or “documentation of previous infection or natural infection presumed.”
A little over half of the US population is fully vaccinated with one of the country’s three options – Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson.
Updated
On the topic of long-term public health action, experts have said recently that the evidence linking obesity to the worst Covid-19 outcomes is “overwhelmingly clear” and should warrant aggressive obesity prevention and management efforts.
Jonathan Valabhji, the national clinical director for obesity and diabetes at NHS England, suggested that pandemic restrictions are actually worsening obesity levels.
With co-author Dr Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, he wrote that evidence suggests the link between body mass index (BMI) and Covid-related mortality is stronger than for deaths from other causes, including other respiratory illnesses.
It is therefore important that health systems around the world meet this challenge by upscaling emphasis on and investments in obesity prevention and treatments.
Recent successful interventions in weight management need to be extended and offered to many more people at risk. New, simpler, innovative ways to spread evidence-based dietary or activity messages should also be examined as many people with risk factors are not currently receiving advice. If ever there was a time to improve obesity prevention and management, it is now.
Sales at McDonald’s, perhaps the best-known fast food chain, in the US have jumped nearly 15% on 2019 despite obesity being a leading Covid risk factor. McDonald’s has previously been accused of endangering public health in the UK by encouraging customers to eat more fast food in exchange for prizes such as fries, desserts and fizzy drinks.
About 2.2m of the 2.5m deaths related to Covid over a period studied were in countries with high levels of overweight people, a report from the World Obesity Federation has found. Countries such as the US, UK, and Italy, where more than 50% of adults are overweight, have the biggest proportions of deaths linked to coronavirus.
The US experienced a 29% jump in diabetes deaths last year among people ages 25 to 44 during the pandemic, with the country’s Preventive Services Task Force’s issuing new guidance yesterday to screen people for the condition earlier due to the spike. The taskforce found evidence further establishing that lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise reduce progression of pre-diabetes.
Updated
The emergence of the Delta variant means that vaccination may not prove to be the magic bullet that many governments hoped for, a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit has said.
It called on political leaders to rethink their Covid strategy to adapt it for the long term, after the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group said reaching herd immunity was “not a possibility” with the current Delta variant and represented “mythical” thinking.
The report also modelled that countries that have not have vaccinated 60% of their population by mid-2022 would register GDP losses totalling US$2.3trn in 2022-25. It warned of the geopolitical consequences of vaccine inequity as less developed countries would shoulder around two-thirds of these losses, with Covax having “failed” to reach even modest expectations.
It also said that China’s vaccine diplomacy operation had been a success, though it comes with risks for recipient countries, since the efficacy of some Chinese vaccines appears generally lower than that of Western jabs.
Agathe Demarais, the EIU’s global forecasting director and author of the report, said:
In absolute terms, Asia will be the continent most affected by delayed vaccination timelines … There is little chance that the divide over access to vaccines will ever be bridged. Covax, the WHO-sponsored initiative to ship vaccines to emerging economies, has failed to live up to (modest) expectations.
Despite flattering press releases, donations from rich countries also cover only a fraction of the needs. Finally, the focus in developed economies is shifting towards administering booster doses of coronavirus vaccines, which will compound shortages of raw materials and production bottlenecks.
Over the past year, political leaders have been busy responding to short-term emergencies while the pandemic was raging. They now need to design a longer-term strategy to tackle the coronavirus, as living with Covid will become the new normal.
Updated
In related news, Reuters report that the Japanese prime minister has said the country already has enough Covid-19 vaccines to provide booster shots if such a decision is taken, after announcing an expansion to a state of emergency to more areas.
Yoshihide Suga added that about 60% of the public will be fully vaccinated by the end of September. Japan has yet to make a third round of vaccinations an option, but his comments heavily hint that such moves are under consideration.
Brazil to give over 80s Pfizer booster after company granted lawsuit protection amid row
Brazil will give Covid booster shots to immunosuppressed or vulnerable people, and citizens over the age of 80, beginning on 15 September, the health minister Marcelo Queiroga has said.
Queiroga said Pfizer’s vaccine made in partnership with Germany’s BioNTech will be used as the additional dose in those groups. He said the decision, which the World Health Organization has generally warned against due to a lack of safety and efficacy data, stems from the spread of the Delta variant and the need to increase protection for more vulnerable people.
It comes after it emerged yesterday Brazil had leaked its vaccine supply contract with Pfizer. It shows it provided it with indemnity from possible citizen lawsuits over potential adverse events after it provided jabs at cheaper prices and dropped demands for sovereign assets to be put up to as collateral.
Reportedly, the price paid for 100m jabs, at US$10 each, was 2.3 times lower than the rate the EU is estimated to have paid, following tough negotiating by the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
Earlier this year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported that one official who was present in an unnamed South American country’s negotiations described Pfizer’s demands as “high-level bullying” and said the government felt like it was being “held to ransom” in order to access life-saving vaccines.
Brazil also eventually acceded to demands that it would abide by New York laws in the event of any conflict.
Updated
Delay telling Aucklanders of potential saline jab error 'regrettable', says minister
Five people in Auckland, New Zealand, who received Covid-19 jabs last month may have got a dose of saline solution instead but health officials did not tell them, RNZ reports.
The New Zealand public broadcaster reported that the ministry of health confirmed that the issue was discovered at the end of a day when “the vaccine stock didn’t match the number of doses administered”.
National director for the Covid-19 vaccination and immunisation programme Jo Gibbs told RNZ five doses had been unaccounted for.
It could have been due to some vaccinators getting more than the regular number of doses out of some vials and forgetting to record this. An alternative that we can’t rule out is the possibility that some people didn’t receive the correct vaccine dose.
The broadcaster understands the vaccination centre could not determine who the five people affected of the 732 vaccinated that day were. The government is still seeking advice on whether they all should receive another dose, according to officials. Everyone involved would receive a letter in the next 24 hours
A vial of the Pfizer vaccine usually contains multiple doses which are then diluted using saline solution once it has thawed on-site. RNZ understands that it is possible those people could have received very little vaccine or mere saline solution.
At a parliamentary select committee meeting today, Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said the delay in making the information public was “regrettable”. He revealed he was also aware of at least one more case of vaccine error which had prompted revaccinations.
I think it would have been better if they had been more up front sooner after this happened … They did intend to get in touch with people to let the know what had happened, they did intend for this information to be made public. I think it would have been better if that had happened earlier but he also indicated that there was still some disagreement as to what the most likely thing to have happened here would have been.
Our utilisation rates of the vaccine doses sits at about 99.5% when the World Health Organization … say to plan for a 10% vaccine wastage rate and we’ve got less than half a per cent. That’s a sign that the vaccine is being rolled out very safely.
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US multinational investment bank Goldman Sachs has made it compulsory for its staff to be fully vaccinated against coronavirus to work in its American offices.
From 7 September, all employees, along with clients and visitors, would need to be doubled jabbed to enter its buildings, it said, while it would also introduce mandatory once-a-week testing for staff, the BBC reports.
Proof of vaccination status would be required via an app from October, it added, and unvaccinated workers are to be expected to work from home.
Face masks would also be required from today – regardless of vaccination status – in all common areas of its buildings, except while seated for eating and drinking.
The bank had previously ordered its US bankers to disclose their vaccine status before returning to the office but refrained from mandating them.
Richard Gnodde, the head of Goldman Sachs International, told the BBC that the bank would not insist on people being vaccinated, nor would it force people to return if they felt uncomfortable.
“[We will] continue to manage our exit from this in a cautious and appropriate way to make sure that our people feel comfortable,” he told the BBC.
Last week, the US pharmaceutical company Moderna – the Massachusetts firm that supplies 41% of the US’s Covid vaccines – faced questions after it held off from introducing a staff jab mandate after Johnson & Johnson announced it would impose the measure.
However, Pfizer employees have the option of participating in regular weekly testing if they do not wish to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
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Meanwhile, despite serious concerns over the efficacy of its domestically produced jabs, authorities in at least 12 Chinese cities have warned people who refuse to be vaccinated could be punished if found responsible for spreading the virus.
The New York Times reports that while China has fully vaccinated about 55% of its huge population, officials have said that it needs to reach 80% for herd immunity.
Authorities said they would “hold accountable” people who refused to be vaccinated, unless they had a medical exemption, if they spread the virus; though they did not state what the punishment would amount to.
It comes after several cities in central Hubei province announced that people who refused to be vaccinated would have that entered into their “personal credit score”, meaning they could be barred from going to work or entering hospitals, the NYT reports.
Some Chinese expressed anger at the latest mandates, saying it went against their free will, on Weibo, a popular instant messaging platform.
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Yanzhong Huang, director of the Center for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University, told the New York Times of China’s efforts to deflect attention from serious questions over lab safety in Wuhan:
This not only contributes to the further deterioration of US-China relations but also makes it even less likely for the two countries to work together to face a common challenge. We haven’t seen any bilateral cooperation over the vaccines, tracing the trajectory of the virus or mutations, any of these kind of things.
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China has criticised the US “politicisation” of efforts to trace the origin of the coronavirus and restated demands for a US military laboratory to be investigated, amid the release of an “inconclusive” American intelligence community report on the virus’ origins.
“Scapegoating China cannot whitewash the US,” Fu Cong, director general of the ministry of foreign affairs’ arms control department, said.
If they want to baselessly accuse China, they better be prepared to accept the counterattack from China ... If Dr Tedros believes that we should not rule out the hypothesis of a lab leak, well, he knows where to go. He needs to go to the US labs.
China has said a laboratory leak was highly unlikely, and it has ridiculed a theory that coronavirus escaped from a lab in the city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 infections emerged in late 2019, setting off the pandemic, Reuters reports.
As we reported earlier this week, it has instead suggested that the virus slipped out of a lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, in 2019. “It is only fair that if the US insists that this is a valid hypothesis, they should do their turn and invite the investigation into their labs,” said Fu.
Yesterday, China’s envoy to the United Nations asked the head of the World Health Organization for an investigation into US labs.
The BBC reports that it the Fort Detrick lab was previously the centre of the US biological weapons programme and now houses biomedical labs researching viruses including Ebola and smallpox.
Zhao Lijian, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, recently backed a rap song by a Chinese nationalist group suggesting dastardly plots were cooked up in the facility.
With growing western coverage over the origin of the virus, with a Channel 4 documentary this week posing the question – did Covid-19 leak from a lab in China – the superpower’s media machine has been on the offensive.
The Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has aired a special report, “The Dark History behind Fort Detrick”, focusing on containment breaches at the lab in 2019, to reinforce claims of poor lab security made by Chinese officials, the BBC reports.
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In related news, Higher School Certificate exams could be delayed in New South Wales, Australia, until November with only major subjects examined in face-to-face tests, my colleague Anne Davies reports.
The NSW government also seems set to extend the lockdown in regional NSW until the end of September, in line with the lockdown in greater Sydney.
Announcements are expected on the lockdown and a possible small relaxation of some restrictions for fully vaccinated people on Thursday, after a meeting of the state’s crisis cabinet late on Wednesday. Discussions about the roadmap for schools and the HSC are continuing.
India is to supply millions of additional Covid-19 vaccine doses to its states to try to inoculate all school teachers by early next month, the health minister has said, as the country gradually resumes physical classes.
Reuters reports that hundreds of millions of students have been stuck at home for months, with little or no access to online education for a majority of the poor.
“We have requested all states to try to vaccinate all school teachers on priority before Teachers’ Day, which is celebrated on 5 September,” health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Twitter. He said states would be given more than 20m additional doses for the purpose.
Several states have attempted to reopen schools since the pandemic began last year, but some shut them down after infections were detected on campuses, Reuters reports.
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat said it would resume physical classes for middle school students from 2 September, at half the capacity, for the first time in more than 18 months. Schools reopened for older children nearly a month ago.
A parliamentary report said this month the pandemic disrupted the education of nearly 320m Indian students in various schools, colleges and universities.
It recommended “accentuated vaccine programmes for all students, teachers and allied staff so that schools may start functioning normally at the earliest”.
India has administered 596m vaccine doses, giving at least one dose to nearly half of its 944m adults and the required two doses to 14%.
Hello and greetings to everyone reading, wherever you are in the world. Mattha Busby here to take you through the next few hours of global Covid developments. Thanks to my colleague Léonie Chao-Fong for covering the blog up until now. Please feel free to drop me a line on Twitter or message me via email (mattha.busby.freelance@guardian.co.uk) with any tips or thoughts on our coverage.
Here’s the full story on Taiwan reporting zero community cases of Covid-19 for the first time since its biggest outbreak began in May, killing more than 800 people, from my colleague Helen Davidson.
The island’s ability to keep the pandemic out of the community was a global success story. Residents lived a largely normal life for most of 2020 and early 2021, albeit with closed borders.
Private call centre staff subcontracted to work on UK Covid test-and-trace services have been advised to limit time away from answering phones to 10 minutes per six-hour shift and told they will not be paid for breaks, the Guardian has learned.
The workers, who answer calls from home for the government’s 119 Covid number, have to select “comfort break” on their computer before using the toilet and are told to minimise time spent on such absences, or on fetching food or drink, or praying.
A summary of today's developments so far
Thanks for reading – it’s time for me to hand over to my colleague Mattha Busby. Before I go, here’s a quick summary of the day’s events:
- The review into Covid’s origins ordered by the Biden administration 90 days ago is inconclusive, according to US media reports.
- Japan is set to expand a state of emergency to eight more prefectures, taking the total to 21, amid a surge in cases that has left hospitals overwhelmed.
- Researchers say protection provided by two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines starts to wane within six months. Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) member Prof Adam Finn said the results could support a booster shot for the elderly.
- Patients who have recovered from Covid in Vietnam will be offered a monthly allowance if they agree to stay on to help health workers struggling to cope with the surge in infections.
- The number of young smokers in England rose by a quarter in first lockdown. Nevertheless, the number of people who stopped smoking altogether increased.
- Covid vaccinations in Afghanistan fell by 80% in the first week following the Taliban takeover of Kabul, Unicef said.
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Private PCR Covid test providers in the UK could risk enforcement action over misleading advertising and failing to deliver results on time, the competition watchdog warned.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said a range of harmful practices, such as upfront prices that do not include additional charges and failing to deliver results within stated timescales, could breach consumer protection law.
CMA general counsel Sarah Cardell said:
PCR test providers should be in no doubt that they need to get on the right side of the law. If they don’t, they risk enforcement action.
Our advice today will also help people by setting out exactly what they should expect for their money.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said on Monday that 82 providers could lose government approval to sell travel tests following a review by ministers into misleading costs from “cowboy” providers.
The move comes amid mounting concerns that the Covid testing regime for people returning to England is on the brink of collapse, after ministers decided to leave provision to the private sector.
A further 57 companies have been removed from the list as they no longer exist or do not provide tests for people to use on day two and day eight after returning from many foreign countries.
Covid vaccinations in Afghanistan fell by 80% in the first week following the Taliban takeover of Kabul, Unicef said.
In the week starting 8 August, 134,600 people were inoculated in 30 of the 34 provinces in the country.
The Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital the following week. In the week starting 15 August, 30,500 people had been vaccinated in 23 provinces.
The UN agency warned that half of the nearly 2m Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses delivered to the country are close to expiry.
Patients who have recovered from Covid in Vietnam will be offered a monthly allowance if they agree to stay on to help health workers struggling to cope with the surge in infections.
The programme, called “patient zero with patient zero”, was launched this week in Ho Chi Minh City, the epicentre of the current outbreak.
In recent weeks, Vietnam’s health ministry has dispatched 14,600 additional doctors and nurses to the city and its neighbouring provinces to support an overwhelmed medical system.
According to a letter seen by Reuters:
Participants will be provided with personal protective equipment, food, accommodation and a monthly allowance of 8m dong (£255).
Updated
New Zealand’s Covid response minister says the country will not “throw in the towel” with its elimination strategy, as cases continue to rise.
New Zealand announced 63 new cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, bringing the total to 210 cases. It is the largest single-day jump since the outbreak began last week, and 12 people are hospitalised with the virus.
Some commentators and media overseas have questioned whether the country should continue its elimination strategy, but Covid-19 response minister Chris Hipkins said the country would be staying its course.
“To New Zealanders at home who are saying, ‘is this still the right strategy’, it’s too soon to throw in the towel,” he said. “We’ve come this far, it would be an absolute waste for us to give up on this now. We still want to drive this particular outbreak of Covid-19 out of our community and get back to a sense of normality.”
Russia reported 19,536 new Covid cases and 809 further deaths on Wednesday, according to the government’s coronavirus task force.
The latest daily death toll is close to the record-high 815 fatalities reported earlier this month.
The Scottish government has launched a five-year NHS recovery plan, with £1bn targeted investment to deal with the backlog from the pandemic and increase overall capacity by at least 10%.
The key aim in primary care is to restore face-to-face GP consultations as quickly as possible, but the plan will also invest in mental health support for the NHS workforce, new national and international recruitment campaigns and increasing Child and Adolescent Mental Health capacity.
Launching the plan, the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said: “As we maintain our resilience against Covid-19 and other pressures, the Scottish government is providing targeted investment to increase capacity, reform the system and ultimately get everyone the treatment they need as quickly as possible.
“Tackling the backlog of care is essential and will be a priority. But we want to go further than that and deliver an NHS that is innovative, sustainable and stronger than ever before.”
Updated
Researchers in Thailand have developed a machine to draw out Covid vaccine doses more efficiently as the country struggles with its worst coronavirus outbreak yet, Reuters reports.
Using a robotic arm, the “AutoVacc” system can draw 12 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in four minutes from a vial, according to researchers at Chulalongkorn University.
So far, about 9% of Thailand’s population of more than 66 million have been fully vaccinated, with the rollout hindered by lower-than-anticipated vaccine supplies.
The research team say they should be able to produce 20 more AutoVacc units within three or four months, but that government funds and support would be needed to expand across the country.
Official statistics show Covid is claiming 100 lives a day on average across the UK – but the figures tell only a fraction of the story.
Scientists and academics are looking at the profiles of those who are dying to see how they compare with previous waves.
Read the full report here:
Updated
Kazakhstan will ban unvaccinated people from entering shopping malls, restaurants and cafes at weekends in a bid to contain the spread of Covid, the government said on Wednesday.
From Saturday, people wanting to shop or eat out will have to show a “green” status on a mobile app to prove they have been jabbed, or a recent negative test or have recovered from Covid within the past three months.
Kazakhstan has reported 823,189 Covid cases with 8,643 related deaths, Reuters reports.
Updated
More than 1,000 people who attended the Latitude Festival in Suffolk last month have tested positive for coronavirus, according to government figures.
The festival, which ran from 22 to 25 July, was part of the government’s Covid test events and was attended by about 40,000 people.
Festivalgoers had to show proof of a negative Covid-19 test or be double-vaccinated to gain access to the site but findings showed 432 people were probably infectious at the time.
Data released by Suffolk County Council reportedly shows 1,051 people tested positive for Covid in the days after the event, suggesting 619 people caught Covid at the event.
Updated
Prof Adam Finn, member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said a recent study that showed waning immunity some months after being double-vaccinated could support a booster shot for the elderly.
Asked about a new study that shows protection provided by two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines starts to wane within six months, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “[The elderly] are both the people who receive vaccine earliest, and probably the people whose immunity is most likely to wane.
“So, as evidence accumulates we may well find ourselves moving in that direction as well.”
He continued: “I think the Zoe study and actually, a couple of other studies we recently had, do show the beginnings of a drop off of protection against asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic disease. But other studies are showing maintenance of good protection against serious illness and hospitalisation.
“So that’s encouraging actually that people who’ve had two doses are still very much well-protected against serious illness, which is our main objective.”
Updated
Oxygen firms have been accused of intimidating hospitals in Mexico and spreading fear, doubt and misinformation, according to an investigation.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism claims that the companies Grupo Infra and Praxair Mexico sent letters to Mexican hospitals in an attempt to deter them from switching to cheaper and more convenient oxygen generator plants and threatening legal action if they did.
Mexico has the world’s fourth highest Covid death toll and demand for oxygen has soared. In December 2020, cases in Mexico City overwhelmed hospitals and the national guard was deployed to protect oxygen delivery lorries.
Read the full report here:
Updated
The US will provide an additional 1m Covid vaccine doses to Vietnam, US vice-president Kamala Harris announced on Wednesday.
Speaking at the top of a bilateral meeting with the Vietnamese prime minister Pham, Minh Chinh, Harris said the additional doses would begin to arrive within the next 24 hours.
The US has donated a total of 6m doses to Vietnam, which is grappling with record high infections driven by the highly contagious Delta variant and stubbornly low vaccination rates.
The surge in cases prompted a recent lockdown in Ho Chi Minh City, with residents under stay-at-home orders and the army and police deployed to enforce the restrictions and deliver essentials to those in need.
Updated
The number of young adults who smoke in England rose by about a quarter in the first lockdown, research has suggested.
Nevertheless, the number of people who stopped smoking altogether increased – almost doubling during the first national lockdown when compared with the period immediately prior.
Researchers said the widespread belief that smoking and drinking relieved stress could be a factor in the apparent increased prevalence among people aged 18 to 34 years, but they said their data did not indicate what the causes may be.
Read the full report here:
Taiwan reported zero new domestic Covid cases on Wednesday, the first time it has logged no community transmissions since 9 May.
On Monday, the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, received her first dose of the island’s domestically developed coronavirus vaccine, launching its rollout to the public.
UK researchers report seeing some waning of protection in double-jabbed people
The protection provided by two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines starts to wane within six months, new research suggests.
The Pfizer jab has been shown to be 88% effective at preventing Covid-19 infection a month after the second dose. After five to six months, protection decreased to 74%, PA reports.
The AstraZeneca vaccine provides 77% protection against infection one month after the second dose. After four to five months, protection decreased to 67%.
This latest analysis from the Zoe Covid study drew on more than 1.2 million test results and participants. Real-world analysis would be expected to show less protection than clinical trials, and the vaccines were not trialled against the now dominant Delta variant.
Prof Tim Spector, lead scientist on the study, said: “In my opinion, a reasonable worst-case scenario could see protection below 50% for the elderly and healthcare workers by winter.
“If high levels of infection in the UK, driven by loosened social restrictions and a highly transmissible variant, this scenario could mean increased hospitalisations and deaths.”
Updated
They started as a way of doing the right thing by vulnerable neighbours during the pandemic: WhatsApp groups asking if anybody along the street needs help, for example with shopping.
A year and a half later, these community groups continue to thrive and have evolved into a means of swapping and sharing goods – offering everything from spare dog food to a free car.
It’s a picture mirrored across the country: community connections made in the peak of the pandemic helping to create unofficial swap shops. This sharing culture has exploded since the onset of coronavirus, according to a pre-WhatsApp website dedicated to giving away items for free. Postings on the Freecycle Network, a non-profit platform started in 2003, increased by 50% in June 2020, its executive director Deron Beal has revealed.
Updated
Two more Paralympic athletes test positive for Covid-19 in Tokyo village
Two more athletes have tested positive for Covid-19 in the Paralympic village, with officials awaiting information to confirm if a cluster of infection has broken out, after a first case was discovered on Tuesday.
The news comes as ParalympicsGB announced a member of their coaching staff, part of the wheelchair tennis team, has been confirmed as having the virus and is in isolation:
Updated
Japan to expand state of emergency
Japan is set to expand a state of emergency to eight more prefectures, taking the total to 21, the minister in charge of coronavirus countermeasures said on Wednesday, as a surge in cases overwhelms its hospitals.
Economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said the expansion, which would cover almost half the country’s 47 prefectures, was approved by a panel of external experts. It is expected to be formally approved at a government taskforce meeting later on Wednesday.
“The most important task is to beef up the medical system,” Nishimura said, adding that securing oxygen stations and nurses was among the priorities.
With the Delta variant spreading fast, the government has struggled to bring infections under control as citizens grow weary of life under restrictions and many companies ignore repeated requests to promote work-from-home.
Public broadcaster NHK reported 21,570 new cases and 42 deaths on Tuesday. Japan’s case fatality rate stands at about 1.2%, compared with 1.7% in the US and 2.0% in Britain.
Months of emergency curbs in the capital, Tokyo, and surrounding areas have failed to reverse a surge in infections and about 90% of the city’s critical care beds are occupied.
“The working-age demographic is the driving force [behind the rise in infections],” Nishimura said. “We need to halve the movement of people.”
Updated
Biden review of Covid origins reportedly ‘inconclusive’
The review into Covid’s origins ordered by the Biden administration 90 days ago is inconclusive, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, citing US officials familiar with the matter.
The report’s findings are due to be unclassified any day now but are reportedly inconclusive on whether the virus jumped from animals to humans or escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.
The Washington Post writes:
The assessment is the result of a 90-day sprint after Biden tasked his intelligence agencies in May to produce a report ‘that could bring us closer to a definitive conclusion’ on the origins of a virus that has killed more than 4 million people globally and wrecked national economies. But despite analysing a raft of existing intelligence and searching for new clues, intelligence officials fell short of a consensus, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report is not yet public.
Covid has killed 4.6 million people worldwide, but its precise origins remain mysterious. The first known cases emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 and US agencies started looking into the origins shortly afterwards.
US spy agencies initially strongly favoured the explanation that the virus originated in nature, Reuters reports.
A team led by the World Health Organization (WHO) that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal.
But their March report, which was written jointly with Chinese scientists and concluded that the lab theory was “extremely unlikely,” did not satisfy Washington.
Meanwhile, China has refused to give US researchers the kind of access to the Wuhan lab and officials there that the US believes it would need to definitively try to determine the virus’s origins.
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
Japan is set to expand a state of emergency to a further eight prefectures, taking the total to 21, the minister in charge of coronavirus countermeasures said on Wednesday, as a surge in cases overwhelms its hospitals.
And the review into Covid’s origins ordered by the Biden administration 90 days ago is inconclusive, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, citing US officials familiar with the matter.
The report’s findings are due to be unclassified any day now but are reportedly inconclusive on whether the virus jumped from animals to humans or escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.
More on this story shortly. In the meantime, here are the key developments from the last few hours:
- New daily coronavirus infections in Israel are approaching record levels, despite the country’s largely successful vaccination campaign and the recent rollout of the world’s first widespread booster shot. The spread of the virus has been driven by a surge in the Delta variant even among the vaccinated.
- Bereaved families call for UK-wide Covid inquiry to start before end of the year. The UK government, Welsh and Northern Irish administrations must “show some leadership” and ensure that statutory coronavirus inquiries start before the year is out, campaigners have said.
- Growing numbers of US districts have stopped in-person learning at schools. More than 80 school districts or charter networks have closed or delayed in-person classes for at least one entire school in more than a dozen states because of an increase in Covid cases.
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The vaccine supply contract between Brazil and Pfizer has been made public, in what is believed to be the first such time in history between a state and a pharmaceutical company.
- The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has launched a £7.5m emergency appeal after it lost millions of pounds during the Covid pandemic. The festival’s directors said the crisis had had a devastating impact on the event, which until last year was the world’s largest annual arts festival. It was entirely shut down in 2020 and this year has operated at a fifth of its normal size.
- In Australia, Indigenous Covid vaccination rates have risen rapidly in the past month, but new data shows the gap is widening between First Nations people and overall vaccination rates in almost every state and territory.
- The Greek government has announced that all indoor eateries, bars, clubs and entertainment venues will be off limits for unvaccinated citizens. The ban starts next month.
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More than 5bn anti-Covid jabs have been delivered globally, an AFP tally of official sources shows. While it took around 140 days to administer the 1bn shots, the third, fourth and fifth billions each took between 26 and 30 days, the data show.
- Covid booster shots may only be needed for about 40% of immunosuppressed people, preliminary UK data suggests.Researchers looked at immune responses after two shots of either the Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines in people with compromised immune systems, due to underlying disease or the medicines they are taking for their underlying disease.
Updated
