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All 16 and 17-year-olds in England will be offered a Covid vaccine by next Monday, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said today.
The date will ensure pupils have the best possible first jab protection before returning to school in September.
Mr Javid is looking to speed up vaccinations ahead of the autumn term to avoid a rise in cases. He told The Mirror:
It is brilliant to see tens of thousands of young people have already had their vaccine. This will ensure everyone has the chance to get vital protection before returning to college or sixth form.
It comes as Independent Sage scientists warned up to 2,000 children could “easily” be in Covid wards by the end of the autumn term unless vaccinations are rolled out for 12 to 15-year-olds. Prof Christina Pagel said:
We removed masks, we’ve removed bubbles, we’ve removed contact tracing, we’ve removed social distancing, we are not vaccinating children.
Brazil recorded a further 926 coronavirus deaths on Saturday and 31,142 new cases, according to data released by the country’s health ministry.
It has now registered a total of 568,788 Covid-related deaths and has a total of 20,350,142 confirmed cases.
The nation has been hit hard by the pandemic and its president Jair Bolsonaro has come in for fierce criticism over his government’s handling of the crisis.
It was reported earlier today that vaccinations in Rio are to resume for people aged 22 or older.
President of the United States Joe Biden has called school district superintendents in Florida and Arizona to praise them for making masks in schools mandatory in defiance of their Republican governors.
A White House statement said the president had spoken with interim Broward Superintendent Vickie Cartwright in Florida and Phoenix Union High School District Superintendent Chad Gestson in Arizona “to thank them for their leadership and discuss their shared commitment to getting all students back in safe, full-time in-person learning this school year”, reports the Associated Press.
It added:
The President commended their leadership and courage to do the right thing for the health and well-being of their students, teachers, and school.
It came amid tensions over whether local school districts can and should require face coverings amid rising Covid case numbers.
In Texas, several school districts won temporary legal victories in seeking to circumvent Republican governor Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates, which they say is making the pandemic worse. Similar lawsuits in other states have been filed.
Updated
In Australia, opposition politicians are demanding the federal government publish daily data on Indigenous vaccination rates and “come clean” about exactly where those doses are going.
It comes as the Delta outbreak in western New South Wales (NSW) continues to grow in vulnerable Aboriginal communities of Dubbo and Walgett.
Labor’s health spokesman, Mark Butler, and Indigenous affairs spokeswoman, Linda Burney, said in a joint statement:
The government needs to be honest about the failure of the vaccine rollout for First Nations Australians. The lockdown of Walgett shire has exposed the low vaccination rates among First Nations people, in particular in regional and remote communities.
The prime minister said the vaccine rollout in First Nations communities would be a priority. They were in phase 1b of the rollout – a group that was supposed to be fully vaccinated by winter.
A spokesperson for the federal health department said states and territories can “formally request their LGA data from the commonwealth and it will be provided to them”.
The NSW Delta outbreak had already heavily affected Aboriginal people. Statewide, at least 66 of the current cases were Aboriginal people, and 80% of them were under 40.
Less than 20% of the Aboriginal population aged 16 and over in western NSW had received one dose of any vaccine, and only 8% were fully vaccinated when the outbreak began.
Iran will impose a six-day-long “general lockdown” in cities across the country after being hit by what it describes as its fifth wave of the Covid pandemic, state media has reported.
The lockdown includes all bazaars, markets and public offices, as well as movie theatres, gyms and restaurants in all Iranian cities. It will begin on Monday and will last through to Saturday.
The national coronavirus taskforce, which issued the decision, also ordered a travel ban between all Iranian cities from Sunday to Friday.
Iran on Saturday reported 466 deaths and 29,700 new cases of Covid. That brought the total pandemic death toll to 97,208band total confirmed cases to 4,389,085.
Last week, Iran hit a record in both its single-day death toll and confirmed new cases of Covid, with 42,541 new cases and a daily death toll of 588.
A Covid vaccination centre for pregnant women or those who have given birth in the past six weeks has opened in Derry, Northern Ireland.
The clinic, opened by the Western Health Trust at the Foyle Arena, is the first in a series of walk-in centres planned for new and expectant mums in the country.
Pregnant women or those who have had babies in the past six weeks are able to get a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine without an appointment, according to BBC News.
However, the health minister, Robin Swann, criticised protesters who turned up outside the clinic this afternoon as “contemptible”.
He added:
My message to them is simple – you will not divert us from our responsibility to get as many people vaccinated as possible. Vaccination saves lives and reduces levels of serious illness.
The move is part of an effort to increase the take-up of the jab in Northern Ireland as cases continue to rise: 1,437 positive tests were registered on Saturday.
In addition, a further five Covid-related deaths were recorded in Northern Ireland.
📣 Our first vaccination clinic for pregnant women starts TOMORROW
— Western Trust (@WesternHSCTrust) August 13, 2021
First jab Pfizer | No Appointment Necessary
📍 14th August - Foyle Arena, 2pm-5pm
📍 18th August - Omagh Leisure Centre, 1pm-4pm
📍 24th August - Lakeland Forum, 1pm-4pm
Full details➡️ https://t.co/VUXruVquML pic.twitter.com/WJzVxM3JnH
Future clinics are planned over the next 10 days at Omagh Leisure Centre in County Tyrone and the Lakeland Forum in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh.
Similar services have been run by other health trusts in the country.
Updated
The United States is set to offer some Americans Covid booster jabs within months, according to reports.
The New York Times said on Saturday that US president Joe Biden’s administration is developing plans for third shots of the vaccine by the autumn.
It is understood the first boosters are likely to be made available to nursing home residents and health care workers, then older people.
Officials plan to give people the same vaccine that they received initially, the newspaper reported.
However, the decision to provide booster shots for Americans is not without its possible controversies for President Biden.
The New York Times reports:
Any booster policy decision is fraught, officials said, because the administration does not want to undermine public confidence in what have proved to be powerfully effective vaccines.
Nor does it want to overvaccinate Americans when many other countries have yet to even begin vaccination campaigns in earnest, increasing the threat of dangerous new variants that could spread to the United States and evade the vaccines.
Updated
The number of children in hospital with Covid in the United States has hit record highs due to Delta variant outbreaks.
There were 1,902 children in American hospitals as of Saturday, making up 2.4 per cent of the nation’s coronavirus hospitalisations, reports the Reuters news agency.
It is understood hospitals across the south have been left stretched to capacity because of outbreaks of the highly transmissible Delta variant, which originated in India.
The figures were provided by the US Department of Health and Human Resources.
Schools districts in Florida, which makes up a fifth of Covid hospitalisations in the US, Texas and Arizona have mandated pupils must wear face masks at school, defying orders from Republican state governors.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association union, said today that schools should employ every mitigation strategy. She told CNN:
Our students under 12 can’t get vaccinated. It’s our responsibility to keep them safe.
Keeping them safe means that everyone who can be vaccinated should be vaccinated.
Children aged 12 or younger are not eligible to receive the vaccine, leaving them vulnerable to becoming infected by the Delta variant.
The US state of Michigan has today surpassed 20,000 deaths from coronavirus.
The grim milestone prompted the state’s health and human services director Elizabeth Hertel to call for people to take precautions.
The Associated Press confirmed this afternoon that 20,011 people have died from Covid in Michigan since March 2020.
Elizabeth Hertel moved to remind people the virus is “deadly”, saying:
We’ve seen real devastation and tragedy as a result of Covid-19, and it remains as important now as it [was] a year ago to mitigate the transmission of this virus because it is deadly.
Michigan also said it has identified Delta variant infections in more than 50 counties, as well as the city of Detroit.
Almost 70% of deaths in the state have been people aged 70 or older, while African Americans account for 22% of total deaths despite only making up 14% of the state’s population.
Updated
A further 34 Covid-related deaths were reported in Italy today, while the number of new infections also fell.
The figure represents a slight decrease in the number of deaths from the virus being registered, according to the Reuters news agency.
By comparison, on Friday there were 45 coronavirus deaths in the country, which has the second-highest death toll in Europe - behind only the UK.
Meanwhile, the number of people testing positive for Covid also dropped slightly from 7,409 on Friday to 7,188 today.
Reuters reported:
Italy has registered 128,413 deaths linked to COVID-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second-highest toll in Europe after Britain and the eighth-highest in the world. The country has reported 4.435 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 3,101 on Saturday, up from 3,033 a day earlier.
There were 37 new admissions to intensive care units, up from 35 on Friday. The total number of intensive care patients increased to 372 from a previous 369.
Italy’s health ministry also announced there had been 254,006 Covid tests carried out in the past 24 hours - up from 225,486 on Friday.
The British prime minister’s wife Carrie Johnson encouraged pregnant women to get vaccinated, writing on Instagram that she was “feeling great” after taking her second jab.
Johnson announced on Instagram at the end of July that she was pregnant with her second child with the prime minister Boris Johnson.
Posting a picture of herself wearing a vaccination sticker, she said pregnant women anxious about side effects that the evidence was “incredibly reassuring”.
Having suffered a miscarriage earlier in the year, she emphasised that data showed the risk was not increased by taking the vaccine. She wrote:
The Royal College of Midwives has said that expectant mothers are at greater risk of serious illness if they get Covid so being vaccinated really is the best way to keep you and your baby safe.
The number of positive Covid cases in the UK fell slightly today, as government figures confirmed 29,520 new cases in the past 24 hours.
It represents a drop following the 32,700 cases recorded on Friday.
It comes as a further 93 deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test were registered, compared to 100 yesterday.
Typically, lower levels of coronavirus cases and deaths are recorded at weekends but the figures will dash any hopes the virus is in retreat in the UK.
Cases had fallen as low as 21,691 earlier in August, following a high of 54,674 daily cases the previous month.
Here's a summary of today's news
- The Philippines recorded its second-largest daily increase in infections, with 14,249 new cases announced on Saturday. It also recorded 233 new deaths. Meanwhile the health secretary had to defend his department’s spending, insisting money was not stolen from pandemic funds after a report by the state auditor raised concerns.
- Iran ordered a week-long lockdown and banned road travel within the country in an attempt to counter its fifth surge of infections.
- Chinese state media hit back at the suggestion the Covid-19 virus could have originated with a Wuhan researcher collecting bat viruses, accusing western media of “distorting” the comments of Danish researcher Peter Ben Embarek.
- Deaths in Russia reached a record high of 819 on Saturday, with 22,144 new cases. Cases have remained over 20,000 a day since reaching record highs in early July.
- More than 75,000 children over 12 registered for vaccination in Ireland, where the rollout began on Friday and is continuing into the weekend.
- New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, tightened lockdown restrictions and announced AU$5,000 for breaches.
- Egypt received its third shipment of 1.7m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine donated through the Covax vaccine sharing initiative.
Updated
Protesters took to the streets of France for the fifth consecutive Saturday to oppose the country’s pass sanitaire – health pass – now required for everyday activities.
More than 250,000 people were expected at about 200 demonstrations, an increase in the number that officials said had turned out last week. Protesters have accused the government of underestimating the numbers and playing down support.
The protesters are opposed to the government’s decision to make the pass sanitaire obligatory for restaurants, bars, cinemas, theatres and most public buildings apart from shops. They accuse the government of infringing their civil and personal liberties. A number are also opposed to the vaccination of children; France has been vaccinating the 12-17 age group since May.
To obtain a health pass, individuals must be fully vaccinated, have a recent negative Covid-19 test or have had the coronavirus in the past.
Deaths in Bangladesh reached their lowest point in three weeks as the country removes more than a month of lockdown restrictions.
The country recorded 178 deaths on Saturday, down from 197 on Friday. Daily deaths had been above 200 since 25 July.
Bangladesh this week began lifting the lockdown that had been in place since early July to stop a rise a surge in infections caused by the Delta variant.
Bangladesh also recorded 6,885 cases but the real number is believed to be higher because of limited testing coverage.
Bangladeshi newspaper New Age reported this week that testing was concentrated around cities, with more than 40% in the capital Dhaka and port city Chittagong.
Updated
Iran is importing 30m vaccine doses, the president announced on Saturday as he ordered the country to overhaul its approach to Covid-19 amid its fifth surge.
Ebrahim Raisi said experts estimate 60m doses are needed to counter the outbreak fuelled by the delta variant, reported the semi-official Fars news agency.
He also called for more control of movement across the borders. The country announced a week-long lockdown on Saturday, enforcing a ban on road travel, the closure of non-essential shops, and the closure of schools.
Iran reported 466 deaths on Saturday.
Updated
The Associated Press reports that the international system to share coronavirus vaccines was supposed to guarantee that low and middle-income countries could get doses “without being last in line and at the mercy of unreliable donations, but it has not worked out that way”. The UK is among those who should shoulder much of the blame, it reports.
In late June alone, the initiative known as Covax sent some 530,000 doses to Britain more than double the amount sent that month to the entire continent of Africa.
Under Covax, countries were supposed to give money so vaccines could be set aside, both as donations to poor countries and as an insurance policy for richer ones to buy doses if theirs fell through. Some rich countries, including those in the EU, calculated that they had more than enough doses available through bilateral deals and ceded their allocated Cova doses to poorer countries.
But others, including Britain, tapped into the meagre supply of Covax doses themselves, despite being among the countries that had reserved most of the world’s available vaccines. In the meantime, billions of people in poor countries have yet to receive a single dose.
The result is that poorer countries have landed in exactly the predicament Covax was supposed to avoid: dependent on the whims and politics of rich countries for donations, just as they have been so often in the past. And in many cases, rich countries don’t want to donate in significant amounts before they finish vaccinating all their citizens who could possibly want a dose, a process that is still playing out.
“If we had tried to withhold vaccines from parts of the world, could we have made it any worse than it is today?” asked Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior advisor at the World Health Organization, during a public session on vaccine equity.
“The government is a strong champion of Covax,” the UK said, describing the initiative as a mechanism for all countries to obtain vaccines, not just those in need of donations. It declined to explain why it chose to receive those doses despite private deals that have reserved eight injections for every UK resident.
Updated
Chinese state media attempts to discredit suggestion Covid patient zero could be lab worker
A state-run Chinese newspaper has claimed comments made by the World Health Organization’s lead to the international mission to Wuhan suggesting a lab researcher collecting bat viruses in the wild was a “probable hypothesis” to the origins of Covid were the result of a translation error.
The false claim comes after Danish scientist Peter Ben Embarek hit out at Chinese obstruction of the WHO investigation and hypothesised that patient zero could have been a field worker who had gathered samples. It marked a radical departure from his previously expressed view that a lab-related leak was “extremely unlikely”
“It seemed that some Western media simply cannot drop their playbook of distorting the scientific community’s views on the origins of SARS-CoV-2,” the tabloid Global Times reported late on Friday.
Singling out UK online newspaper the Independent for its reporting, it wrote:
A source revealed to the Global Times that the widespread reports which claimed a Wuhan lab worker may be the Covid-19 patient zero was only a translation error.
That was a scenario he used as an example to illustrate how the different hypotheses of lab leak and infections from bat to human are linked and should not be looked at separately as each hypothesis includes many different scenarios, the source said.
The WHO-China joint report released on March 31 listed four hypotheses for the source of transmission of the novel coronavirus to the human population, namely a direct zoonotic spillover, cold-chain food infection, an intermediary host species, and a laboratory-related incident.
The joint study said that a laboratory incident is “extremely unlikely” to be the cause of Covid-19 pandemic.
Ben Embarek told the Washington Post the interview had been mistranslated in English-language media coverage, but would not comment further. “It is a wrong translation from a Danish article,” he said.
Our danish colleague translated it as likely and TV2 translated it as likely. WHO and David himself did not dispute when we contacted. There may some ambiguity in it as he’s making a complex point that a lab worker infected while collecting samples would be direct zoonotic spread
— Adam Taylor (@mradamtaylor) August 12, 2021
As you’d remember, the WHO-China report refers to direct spread from bats to humans as “likely” so it fits in this context
— Adam Taylor (@mradamtaylor) August 12, 2021
It comes as Al-Jazeera reports that Jamie Metzl, who sits on a WHO advisory board on human genome editing, said Embarek’s comments were “a gamechanger”, and condemned his earlier state on a lab leak being unlikely as “shameful”.
“It’s even more significant that the international expert team who stated with such confidence in the February Wuhan press event that a lab origin was unlikely themselves believed this was not the case and were simply trying to assuage their Chinese government-affiliated hosts,” he told the website.
Al-Jazeera reports that all of the scientists on the WHO-led team were approved by China and the team’s agenda and final report were also vetted by the Chinese government.
Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post reports that virologist Tony Della-Porta, who ran WHO-sponsored biosafety workshops for the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention between 2005 and 2007, said he understood why China was defensive about allowing independent investigation into its laboratories.
“When outside people want to come in and quiz them about whether there was a lab leak, rather than look at what led to the pandemic, the approach is confrontational rather than collaborative,” he told the SCMP.
He added that the WHO study was constrained by needing to find consensus between both groups: “Half China-appointed experts, half WHO-appointed experts – it becomes very difficult to have open conversations in a group like that.”
The WHO said in a statement:
China and a number of other member states have written to WHO regarding the basis for further studies of the Sars-CoV-2 ‘lab hypothesis.’ They have also suggested the origins study has been politicised, or that WHO has acted due to political pressure.
On review of the phase one study report, WHO determined that there was insufficient scientific evidence to rule any of the hypotheses out. Specifically, in order to address the “lab hypothesis,” it is important to have access to all data and consider scientific best practice and look at the mechanisms WHO already has in place. WHO is only focused on science, providing solutions and building solidarity.
Updated
The World Health Organization is continuing to urge for the increasing number of booster shot campaigns around the world to be suspended.
The WHO chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said today:
Countries with high coverage are seeing a decoupling of #COVID19 cases & deaths, whereas countries that can't access vaccines are seeing high cases drive steep rises in death.
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) August 14, 2021
No one is safe until everyone is safe & that's why we need a moratorium on boosters. #VaccinEquity https://t.co/Mp4LM2S6tX
It comes after the head of the Oxford vaccine group which developed the AstraZeneca vaccines yesterday warned many more people around the world would die of Covid if western political leaders “reject their responsibility to the rest of humanity” by prioritising booster shots for their own populations instead of sharing doses.
Prof Andrew Pollard, and Seth Berkley, the chief executive of Gavi, the vaccine alliance, said also that the scientific and public health case for large-scale boosting has not been made.
Updated
Covid-19 infections have been surging in the Myanmar prisons that have been filling up since the country’s military seized power in February, according to Human Rights Watch.
The rights group called for widespread testing of prisoners, suggesting the 600 cases officially recorded are likely to be higher in the overcrowded facilities.
It said there had been several protests by prisoners angry at the outbreaks, including one last week when pro-democracy activist Maung Maung Nyein Tun died after being transferred from an interrogation centre to prison despite showing symptoms.
“At a minimum, Myanmar’s prison authorities need to carry out widespread testing of inmates, release all prisoners who pose little security risk, and make information on the prevalence of Covid-19 in prisons public. Otherwise, the virus and loss of lives among prisoners will continue unchecked,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
Iran orders lockdown and travel ban
Iran has banned road travel within the country and ordered a one-week lockdown in an attempt to counter its fifth surge of infections.
The roads will only be open to ambulances and trucks transporting food and essential goods. Non-essential businesses will be forced to shut until 21 August.
The health ministry said on Saturday that 466 Iranians died from Covid-19 over the past 24 hours.
Of the 29,700 new cases recorded, more than 4,000 were hospitalised.
More than 75,000 children aged over 12 signed up to be vaccinated within 48 hours of Ireland opening registration, according to the head of the healthcare service.
The Health Service Executive’s CEO, Paul Reid, said the first jabs were given on Friday. The rollout is to continue through the weekend.
A parent’s consent is required for a child to be vaccinated.
According to the health service, Ireland had recorded 1,978 cases as of Friday night.
Yesterday I witnessed many parents & their children from 12 to 15 attending a vaccination centre in Carrick on Shannon. Children have sacrificed so much in this pandemic too & they have shown maturity beyond their years. Vaccinations are our way out of this awful period.@HSELive
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) August 14, 2021
Updated
The Phillippine health minister has denied pandemic funds were stolen after concerns were raised over almost £1bn.
“You will be assured that no money went into corruption. None was stolen. I am sure of that,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque told DZMM radio on Saturday.
Duque said it will submit explanations and documents to the state auditor, which flagged “deficiencies” involving 67.3bn pesos.
The Philippines has had 1.71m infections and 29,838 deaths and the Manila capital region is under a strict lockdown to contain the spread of the Delta variant.
The country’s hospitals have been overwhelmed by cases and healthcare workers are preparing to protest over an unpaid special risk allowance.
Jocelyn Andamo, secretary general of the Filipino Nurses United, told Reuters that dozens of nurses could resign as a result.
Updated
Egypt received its third shipment of 1.7m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine donated through the Covax vaccine sharing initiative, its health ministry said late Friday.
It has now received 4.3m AstraZeneca doses through the scheme and has also taken shipments of several other vaccines to help in its push to vaccinate 40% of its population by the year’s end.
Updated
Deaths in Russia reached a new record of 819 on Saturday and it recorded 22,144 new cases.
Russia has now had 169,683 deaths from Covid-19.
Though new infections have slightly reduced after reaching record levels in early July they have consistently remained over 20,000 daily.
Updated
China has administered a total of 1.84bn doses of vaccines as of Friday 13 August, the National Health Commission said on Saturday. On Friday alone, about 11.9m doses were administered, according to a Reuters calculation.
The Philippine health ministry has recorded 14,249 new cases, the new second-largest daily increase in infections.
The ministry said total confirmed infections in the Philippines have increased to 1.7m, while deaths have reached 30,070, after reporting 233 additional casualties. Active cases, at 98,847, was at a near four-month high, government data showed.
New South Wales locks down
Australia’s most populous state tightens restrictions and imposes new AU$5,000 fines for lockdown breaches, ahead of an expected worsening of numbers in coming days.
New South Wales was forced into a snap statewide lockdown after enduring its worst day of the pandemic so far, with 466 new cases and four deaths.
However, in China – whence Covid sprang, the situation seems to be easing slightly. Beijing reports 30 new locally transmitted cases; down for the fourth consecutive day.
In the UK, the cost of individual travel tests from NHS test and trace for people who arrive from abroad is to be cut. The health department said it is to go down from £88 to £68 for UK travellers who have come from green list countries, or those who have arrived from amber list countries and have been fully vaccinated.
Updated
