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An unvaccinated teacher in a California elementary school infected half her students and 26 people in total when she contracted the Covid-19 Delta variant, researchers for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found.
The researchers said the teacher attended school for two days despite displaying symptoms of Covid-19, and read aloud to her class without a mask during that time. Infections corresponded to the classroom’s seating chart, with the students sitting closest to the teacher the most likely to be infected.
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 today, there had been a further 32,406 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the UK, the Government said.
Government data up to August 27 shows that of the 90,466,529 Covid jabs given in the UK, 47,958,928 were first doses, a rise of 43,160 on the previous day. Around 42,507,601 were second doses, an increase of 128,248.
The Government has said a further 133 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of today, bringing the UK total to 132,376, reports PA.
Summary
That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, for today. Here’s a quick roundup of what’s been happening so far:
- UK government scientific advisers are warning universities about hosting freshers’ weeks next month, saying they could lead to “very large spikes” in coronavirus cases.
- Japan’s health ministry said it was investigating after two men in their 30s died after receiving Moderna jabs that were among batches later suspended following the discovery of contaminants. The ministry said there was no evidence that the shots taken by the men contained contaminants.
- The Delta variant of Covid-19 doubles the risk of Covid hospitalisation compared with the previously dominant Alpha variant, a new study has found. The analysis – based on data collected in England – suggests that outbreaks of the Delta variant are likely to put an additional strain on health services.
- Vietnam reported 12,103 new cases and 352 further deaths on Friday, the majority of which were in Ho Chi Minh City and its neighbouring industrial province of Binh Duong.
- India has administered more than 10 million vaccine doses in 24 hours, as it prepares for a predicted surge in infections. The country reported 46,759 new Covid cases on Saturday, the highest daily number of recorded cases in nearly two months.
- The Australian state of New South Wales recorded 1,035 new cases on Saturday – the highest daily total for any Australian state or territory since the pandemic began. Figures obtained by Guardian Australia show a huge gap between Covid vaccination rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in every region of the state
- The outbreak in neighbouring New Zealand has also worsened, with 82 new cases reported on Saturday. It brings the total number of cases of the community outbreak to 429, 415 of which have been in Auckland.
Updated
Tennis fans aged 12 or over will be required to show proof of Covid vaccination in order to attend the US Open, tournament officials have confirmed.
The tournament did not originally require any proof of vaccination or a recent negative test for fans to enter. Attendees were also not required to wear a mask.
Stricter protocols were only introduced after tournament officials came under pressure from New York’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, and other city leaders.
On Friday evening, the tournament announced on Twitter that proof of at least one vaccine shot would now be required for entrance to the grounds for all fans aged 12 and older. Masks will not be required.
Updated
As September approaches, employers are increasingly asking workers to come in, with many offices adopting hybrid systems after months of working from home – prompting mixed emotions. Commuting can be both expensive and polluting. UK workers pay more of their salary in commuting costs than their EU counterparts, and before the pandemic, two-thirds of people travelled to work by car. Despite the costs, which also include time, some value the commute for separating their home and work lives.
Seven people speak about how their commutes and their perspectives on travelling to work have changed since the onset of the pandemic.
Updated
Freshers’ week parties could cause huge jump in Covid cases, scientists warn
Government scientific advisers have warned universities about hosting freshers’ weeks next month, saying they could lead to “very large spikes” in coronavirus cases.
Universities across the country are planning to hold in-person events for first-year students next month for the first time since 2019.
Professor Susan Michie, director of the centre for behaviour change at University College London, as well as a member of the government’s Covid-19 behavioural science team and part of the Independent Sage group of scientists, said that even if freshers’ events were held outdoors, there would still be a “high risk” associated with them.
She said:
Freshers’ fair week will have the potential for being a superspreader event, and however much universities pay attention to making it as safe as possible, it’s the behaviour of people that won’t be known.
Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London and a member of the Sage immunology taskforce, echoed Michie’s predictions. He said that despite the vaccine rollout, the UK was in a “way, way worse situation than we were last August heading into autumn” as schools and universities prepared to go back.
He said:
So if I imagine vast numbers of kids getting together in halls of residence and in freshers’ week parties, I think how can one not predict that will lead to very large spikes in numbers?
Read the full report here:
Updated
Here’s some more detail on the story that Japan is investigating the death of two men who received jabs from batches of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine that were suspended from use due to contamination.
Agence France-Presse reports:
The men aged 30 and 38 died earlier this month after getting their second Moderna doses from one of three manufacturing lots suspended by the government on Thursday after several vials were found to be contaminated, the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said the cause of death was still being investigated and “currently, causal relations with the vaccinations are unknown”.
Both men contracted fever after receiving their vaccinations and neither had underlying health conditions or allergic history, the ministry said.
Updated
The Italian island region of Sicily will soon be placed under coronavirus restrictions – the first time in two months that such measures have been reimposed on a regional level.
Italy’s health minister, Roberto Speranza, announced he had signed a new ordinance bringing Sicily under “yellow” zone restrictions, meaning people must wear a mask indoors and outdoors and restaurant diners will be limited to groups of four. The rule change is expected to take effect from Monday.
Since the start of summer, all regions in Italy had been classed at the lowest risk level “white”, but the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant has sparked concern. Sicily currently has the highest number of people in hospital and in intensive care.
Updated
Sudan has received a shipment of 218,400 doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine as a donation from France, the health ministry and Unicef said.
The vaccines were delivered through the UN-backed Covax facility. In March, Sudan received an initial 820,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine through Covax and Unicef.
Sudan received 606,700 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines as a donation from the US earlier in August, Reuters reports. The country has also received a number of doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine.
In a statement, Unicef said:
The vaccinations come at a critical time as the infection numbers are climbing while the country is preparing to re-open schools after three years of numerous interruptions.
As of Thursday, Sudan, with a population of 42 million, has officially recorded 37,699 infections and 2,831 deaths since the start of the pandemic. However, this is widely believed to reflect only a fraction of the actual numbers.
A study published late last year by scientists from Imperial College London’s Covid-19 response team in Sudan found that only about 2% of Covid deaths in the capital, Khartoum, had been reported.
Updated
Megan, a 30-year-old from rural Nebraska in the US, feels torn. She hasn’t been vaccinated against Covid-19, but if left to her own devices, things would be different. She worries about what would happen if she caught the virus and passed it on to her toddler daughter, whose history of health complications includes hospitalisation for lung problems.
Megan feels a responsibility to protect her child. But she also doesn’t want to keep secrets from her husband – who, along with his mother, is adamantly against the vaccine for political reasons.
As she figures out how to protect herself and her daughter without inciting major family conflict, Megan admits that her husband’s reliance on conspiracy theories he learns from like-minded friends or social media posts has made it difficult to trust him. Especially now.
“Had we been dating during the pandemic, this may have been a dealbreaker,” she says.
Though the percentage of Americans who have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine is slowly climbing amid the rise of the Delta variant, some have firmly made up their minds not to get the shot. Reasons for refusing the vaccine may vary, but one common byproduct has become clear: seriously strained relationships with loved ones on the other side of the heated moral and ideological debate.
Read the full report here:
Updated
The US government confirmed the world’s first case of coronavirus in deer on Friday, adding to the list of animals known to have tested positive for the disease.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported infections of Sars-CoV-2 in wild white-tailed deer in the state of Ohio, according to a statement on Friday.
A USDA spokesperson told Reuters:
We do not know how the deer were exposed to Sars-CoV-2. It’s possible they were exposed through people, the environment, other deer, or another animal species.
The USDA has previously reported coronavirus in animals including dogs, cats, tigers, lions, snow leopards, otters, gorillas and mink.
Updated
Primark changing rooms at two London stores have been converted into vaccination clinics over the bank holiday weekend.
Anyone aged 16 and over can turn up without an appointment to the Oxford Street East and Wood Green Primark stores and get a first or second dose of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, NHS England said.
The clothing chain store has partnered with the NHS, Haringey Council and Westminster City Council to host its first Covid-19 vaccination clinics in the capital.
Health professionals are on hand to talk to anyone with concerns, and people are reminded that second doses will only be given a minimum of eight weeks after the first.
The move comes as efforts continue to get more young people vaccinated. The latest analysis shows that more than a third of young adults in most cities in England have not had a first dose of a Covid vaccine.
Dr Vin Diwakar, medical director for the NHS in London, urged people to “add this very important item to the top of their shopping list – get vaccinated”.
He said:
It is fantastic that over a million young Londoners have had the vaccine, but it is vital that all get vaccinated to protect themselves from the harm coronavirus can cause even at their young age, as well as preventing transmission to more vulnerable friends and family.
Kari Rodgers, UK retail director for Primark, said pop-up clinics have worked well in other stores.
She said:
Following the success of the vaccination clinics in our stores in Bristol and Birmingham, we’re pleased to be able to offer people in London the opportunity to get their vaccine this weekend at our Wood Green and Oxford Street (East) store.
Wherever we can, we try to support important local community initiatives and we’re really pleased that we can play a small part in supporting the work of the NHS by making it even easier for people to get their vaccine.
Jabs will be on offer at Primark’s Oxford Street East store on Saturday between midday and 5pm, and at the Wood Green branch on Saturday between 10am and 6pm.
Updated
More than 3.8m first doses have been delivered since the NHS “grab a jab” coronavirus vaccination campaign began at the end of June, NHS England has said.
Adults in England are able to turn up at walk-in sites across the country to get a Covid-19 vaccine. Details of the walk-in clinics, which have included festivals, mosques, town halls and football grounds, are available on the NHS website.
Analysis of one weekend in July found that two in five of the 80,000 walk-in doses were administered to people from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Since the campaign was launched, more than 700,000 people from minority ethnic backgrounds have been protected, NHS England said. The fastest growth in vaccinations has been in people of mixed Asian and white backgrounds, followed by mixed white and black African groups.
Updated
Vietnam reports 12,103 new cases and 352 deaths
Vietnam reported 12,103 new cases and 352 further deaths on Friday, the country’s health ministry has said.
Most of the new infections were in Ho Chi Minh City and its neighbouring industrial province of Binh Duong, Reuters reported.
The latest figure brings the total number of cases in the south-east Asian country to 422,000. The official death toll now stands at 10,405.
Updated
The return of pupils to schools in England next month could lead to a spike in Covid-19 cases as parents go back to work and increased mixing takes place in other settings, a government scientific adviser has warned.
Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), which advises the government, said September would be a key month for monitoring Covid-19 data.
Speaking to Times Radio, Tildesley, a professor in infectious disease modelling at the University of Warwick, argued that vaccinating younger age groups could provide protection beyond the school environment.
His comments came as the NHS prepares to administer Covid vaccines to all children aged 12 to 15 in England from early September, coinciding with the start of the new school year.
NHS England has yet to confirm whether jabs will be given to people in this age group despite the apparent public health imperative.
Experts have previously warned that it is “highly likely” there will be large levels of coronavirus infection in schools by the end of September.
Tildesley expressed uncertainty about whether an increase in the prevalence of coronavirus would come from within schools or the wider community, saying it “remains to be seen” how things might change next month.
Updated
Today so far...
- The Delta variant of Covid-19 doubles the risk of Covid hospitalisation compared with the previously dominant Alpha variant, a new study has found. The analysis – based on data collected in England – suggests that outbreaks of the Delta variant are likely to put an additional strain on health services.
- The US president, Joe Biden, has accused China of withholding “critical information” on the origins of Covid-19 after a report summary found that the US intelligence community could not agree on whether a Chinese laboratory incident was the source of Covid-19.
- Japan’s health ministry said it was investigating after two people died after receiving Moderna jabs that were among batches later suspended following the discovery of contaminants. The cause of the deaths is still being investigated and the ministry said there was no evidence that the shots taken by the men contained contaminants.
- India has administered more than 10 million vaccine doses in the past 24 hours, as the country prepares for a predicted surge in infections. The country reported 46,759 new Covid cases on Saturday, the highest daily number of recorded cases in nearly two months.
- The Australian state of New South Wales recorded 1,035 new cases on Saturday – the highest daily total for any Australian state or territory since the pandemic began. Figures obtain by Guardian Australia show a huge gap between Covid vaccination rates among Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in every region of the state.
- The outbreak in neighbouring New Zealand has worsened, with 82 new cases reported on Saturday. It brings the total number of cases of the community outbreak to 429, 415 of which have been in Auckland.
- Coronavirus restrictions in the Philippines have been extended until 7 September after the country reported a record number of daily infections for the third time in the past nine days.
- Secondary school and college pupils will need to wear face coverings in communal areas outside their classrooms in parts of south-west England, following a rise in cases in Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and Devon. The new measures are expected to be in place for five weeks.
Updated
Raul Valenzuela sat inside his living room in Corpus Christi, Texas, as two firefighters prepared him for a Covid-19 vaccine.
Largely homebound, Valenzuela couldn’t imagine going out for a shot. But he knew the pandemic has been getting worse in the city, so he jumped at the opportunity to get vaccinated at his house. “I finally got a number off the TV, and I called it,” he said.
In Corpus Christi, a majority-Latino beach town with a population of about 327,000 in Texas’s coastal bend, almost a thousand residents have already died from the virus. And with cases surging out of control again and all intensive care beds filled, local officials are working feverishly to pre-empt further tragedy.
The saying goes that you can bring a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. With universal in-home vaccinations like Valenzuela’s, Corpus is bringing the water to every horse in town.
Updated
Since 2010, as part of broader changes to Sweden’s universal healthcare system, patients have been allowed to choose their own doctor and clinic. Before that, patients were assigned a clinic based on where they lived.
However, the change has led to widespread discrimination against medics with foreign-sounding names, Agence France-Presse reports, as patients can refuse to be treated by non-ethnic Swedes.
In March, more than 1,000 doctors and medical students signed an appeal in a daily newspaper calling on “the responsible authorities to act against racism” in their field. Last month, the country’s largest broadsheet, Dagens Nyheter, published an investigative series exposing the scope of the problem.
Posing as patients who had recently moved to a new city or town, journalists called 120 healthcare clinics and asked that their new doctor be an ethnic Swede. A total of 51 clinics agreed to the request, and 40 refused.
Clinics often consent to these kinds of requests because of “competition between healthcare clinics over patients”, the head of the Swedish Junior Doctors’ Association, Madeleine Liljegren, told AFP.
The country’s healthcare system relies heavily on immigrant workers; in 2020, 2,401 doctors received medical licences in Sweden, almost half of whom earned their degrees abroad.
Updated
New Zealand’s Covid-19 outbreak has worsened, with 82 new cases reported on Saturday. All of the new cases were in Auckland, with the Pacific community again over-represented, with 62 cases.
It brings the total number of cases of the community outbreak to 429, 415 of which are in Auckland and the remaining 14 in the capital, Wellington.
New Zealand has reached day 11 of a harsh lockdown designed to curb the spread of the virus. The lockdown prevents most people from leaving home other than to exercise, or to buy groceries or medicine. Retail stores are closed, as are restaurants – including takeaway – schools and most businesses.
The vast majority of recent cases have come from household contacts rather than gatherings or essential workplaces.
Read the full report here:
Updated
Coronavirus restrictions have been extended in the Philippines after the country reported a record number of daily infections, Reuters has reported.
The health ministry recorded 19,441 new cases on Saturday, a new high for the third time in the past nine days, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to more than 1.93m. A further 167 deaths were also reported, bringing the total official death toll to 33,008.
“We expect the number of cases will continue to increase in the coming days,” the health undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told reporters.
Current restrictions in the capital region, home to more than 13 million people, have been extended until 7 September.
Although some businesses can operate at up to 50% of on-site capacity, dining in restaurants, personal care services and religious activities are still prohibited, said the government.
Updated
Russia reported 19,492 new cases and 799 further deaths on Saturday.
Data released by the state statistic service Rosstat on Friday showed that Russia saw its highest monthly coronavirus death toll of the pandemic in July. Some 50,421 people died from Covid or related causes in that month.
Overall, Russia recorded about 365,000 deaths related to Covid-19 between April 2020 and July – more than double the initial figures reported by the government’s coronavirus taskforce.
Updated
Recent data that showed researchers are seeing some waning of protection against Covid infections in double-jabbed people is “promising”, a government scientific adviser has said.
Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), said the report on results from the UK-based Zoe Covid Study app suggested that immunity levels dropped six months after vaccination, but this was “not significant”.
Speaking on Times Radio, he said:
We do need to remember that no vaccine is really 100% protective forever, or the vast majority are not. We have this with influenza, that every year you have to have a vaccine to protect against whatever’s circulating. So we might expect in the long term immunity will wane and there may be a need for a booster vaccine.
But actually, I think what’s come out this week is pretty promising, that immunity levels seem to remain high for several months, which is hopefully promising as we move into the winter.
The study, which looked at data on positive Covid PCR test results between May and July 2021 among more than a million people, suggested protection against infection after two shots of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab decreased from 88% at one month to 74% at five to six months, while protection against infection after two Oxford/AstraZeneca jabs fell from 77% to 67% at four to five months.
Updated
In all the change and loss during the pandemic, few have mourned the disappearance of the daily commute. Many rail passengers, battered in preceding years by strikes on Southern, the timetabling fiasco on Northern, and technical woes on Great Western, have welcomed a break.
Leisure rail travel is booming again, however – and with schools set to return next week and many offices expected to fill up again for the first time since Britain lifted Covid restrictions, train operators are anxiously waiting to see whether commuting will follow.
Amid talks about service levels and jobs, the return – or not – of commuters has urgent implications for the railway’s future.
Read the full article here:
Updated
Biden says China withholding 'critical' info on Covid origins
The US president, Joe Biden, has accused China of withholding “critical information” on the origins of Covid-19 after the US intelligence community said it did not believe the virus was a bio-weapon - but remained split on whether it escaped from a lab.
In a statement on Friday, Biden said:
Critical information about the origins of this pandemic exists in the People’s Republic of China, yet from the beginning, government officials in China have worked to prevent international investigators and members of the global public health community from accessing it.
To this day, the PRC continues to reject calls for transparency and withhold information, even as the toll of this pandemic continues to rise.
Biden’s comments followed a report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that concluded organisations within the US intelligence community disagreed about the origins of the coronavirus.
Several thought it emerged from “natural exposure to an animal infected with it or a close progenitor virus”, according to the report summary. But they only had “low confidence” in that conclusion. Other groups were not able to come to a firm opinion.
One intelligence community segment developed “moderate confidence” that the first human infection with Covid was probably due to a “laboratory-associated incident, probably involving experimentation, animal handling or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology”.
The report concluded that analysts would not be able to provide “a more definitive explanation” without new information from China, such as clinical samples and epidemiological data about the earliest cases.
China has ridiculed the theory that Covid-19 escaped from the lab in Wuhan and pushed theories including that it originated at a lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland, in 2019.
Updated
Two people died after receiving Moderna jabs that were among batches later suspended following the discovery of contaminants, Japan’s health ministry said on Saturday.
The men in their 30s died this month within days of receiving their second Moderna doses, the ministry said in a release. Each had a shot from one of three manufacturing lots, the use of which was suspended on Thursday. The cause of the deaths is still being investigated.
In both cases, each man had a fever the day after his second dose and died two days after developing the fever, Reuters reported. There was no evidence that their shots contained contaminants, a health ministry official told reporters.
Japan suspended the use of 1.63m Moderna doses shipped to 863 vaccination centres nationwide after reports of contamination in several vials.
Moderna and the country’s domestic distributor, Takeda Pharmaceutical, said in a statement on Saturday: “At this time, we do not have any evidence that these deaths are caused by the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. It is important to conduct a formal investigation to determine whether there is any connection.”
The government also said no safety or efficacy issues had been identified and that the suspension of the three Moderna batches was a precaution.
Fumie Sakamoto, the infection control manager at St Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo, cautioned against drawing a connection between the doses and the deaths.
“There may only be a temporal relationship between vaccination and death,” he told Reuters. “There are so many things we still don’t know to make any conclusions on these two cases.”
Updated
India administers more than 10 million jabs in one day
India has administered more than 10 million vaccine doses in the past 24 hours, a national record that the prime minister, Narendra Modi, called a “momentous feat” for the country.
Authorities said it is the highest ever number of jabs achieved in a single day since the start of the vaccination programme, as the country prepares for a predicted surge in infections.
India has administered more than 622m vaccine doses in total, giving at least one dose to more than half of its 944 million adults.
Modi hailed the milestone on Twitter, writing: “Record vaccination numbers today! Crossing 1 crore [10 million] is a momentous feat. Kudos to those getting vaccinated and those making the vaccination drive a success.”
India is currently administering three vaccines: the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, known locally as Covishield, Covaxin by Indian firm Bharat Biotech, and the Russian-made Sputnik V.
Updated
It has shipped more than a billion doses, saved countless lives – and faced controversy over its safety and supply.
Oliver Franklin-Wallis spoke to some of those who created the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to tell the story of their epic race against the virus.
Really recommend reading this:
Updated
September will be a key month for monitoring Covid-19 as pupils return to school in England, Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M) government advisory body has said.
Speaking on Times Radio this morning, Dr Tildesley said it “remains to be seen” how things might change when people start to mix more.
I think the key thing for me, actually, is what’s going to happen next month.
Children are going back to school, people are coming back off their summer vacations and I think monitoring what that does to the data – and not just cases but monitoring very carefully hospital admissions and deaths – will really dictate, I think, what’s going to happen in the autumn.
He acknowledged that the country is in “quite a different place” than it was a year ago.
Obviously, we have the Delta variant, which is more transmissible – we have quite high prevalence, a lot of cases; but of course on the other side, we have a very good and effective vaccination campaign.
So I think it remains to be seen how they will trade off against each other and what that will do when September comes and people start to mix a little bit more.”
Updated
India reported 46,759 new Covid cases on Saturday, the highest daily number of recorded cases in nearly two months and the third consecutive day that case numbers have exceeded 40,000.
The southern state of Kerala, which last week celebrated the local Onam festival, accounted for 70% of the new cases, Reuters reports.
India also recorded a further 509 deaths, taking the taking official death toll since the pandemic began to 437,370.
Updated
Delta variant doubles risk of hospitalisation, study finds
The Delta variant doubles the risk of Covid hospitalisation compared with the previously dominant Alpha variant, a new study has found.
The analysis – based on data collected in England – suggests that outbreaks of the Delta variant are likely to put an additional strain on health services, particularly in places with low rates of vaccination.
The Delta variant is already understood to be far more infectious than the previously dominant Alpha variant that was initially detected in Kent. This analysis underscores Delta’s ability to put people in hospital once infected, especially those who have not been vaccinated.
In the study, researchers analysed healthcare data from 43,338 Covid-19 cases in England between 29 March and 23 May 2021. Only 1.8% of the cases had received both doses of the vaccine, 24% had been vaccinated once and 74% were unvaccinated.
After accounting for key factors such as age, ethnicity and vaccination status, the researchers found the risk of being admitted to hospital was more than doubled with the Delta variant compared with the Alpha variant (a 2.26-fold increase in risk), according to the paper published in the Lancet journal.
Dr Gavin Dabrera, one of the study’s lead authors and a consultant epidemiologist for Public Heath England, said:
This study confirms previous findings that people infected with Delta are significantly more likely to require hospitalisation than those with Alpha, although most cases included in the analysis were unvaccinated.
We already know that vaccination offers excellent protection against Delta and as this variant accounts for more than 98% of Covid-19 cases in the UK, it is vital that those who have not received two doses of vaccine do so as soon as possible.
Welcome
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s rolling coverage of the coronavirus pandemic with me, Léonie Chao-Fong.
- The Delta variant of Covid-19 doubles the risk of Covid hospitalisation compared with the previously dominant Alpha variant, a new study has found. The analysis – based on data collected in England – suggests that outbreaks of the Delta variant are likely to put an additional strain on health services.
- The US intelligence community failed to reach a conclusion over whether a Chinese laboratory incident was the source of Covid-19, US officials said in a report summary on Friday. The report was issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in response to Joe Biden’s request.
- In Australia, New South Wales recorded 1,035 new cases on Saturday – the worst daily total for any Australian state or territory since the pandemic began. Figures obtained by Guardian Australia show a huge gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Covid vaccination rates in every region of the state.
- Secondary school and college pupils will need to wear face masks in communal areas outside their classrooms in parts of south-west England, following a rise in cases in Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and Devon. The new measures are expected to be in place for five weeks.
- Denmark is to lift all its remaining Covid-19 restrictions by 10 September after the health ministry declared the virus “no longer a critical threat to society”. Denmark is the EU’s third-most vaccinated country, with 71% of the population having received two shots.
- School districts in Florida in the United States may impose mask mandates, a judge said on Friday, ruling that the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, overstepped his authority by issuing an executive order banning the mandates. The Leon County circuit judge John Cooper agreed with a group of parents who claimed in a lawsuit that DeSantis’s order was unconstitutional and could not be enforced.
Updated
